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• I 







THE ROMANCE OF A SPAHI. 











THE 


Romance of a Spahi 


BY 



CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: 

Rand, McNally & Company, Publishers. 


1 890 . 


?-z - 3 


Copyright 1890, by Rand, McNally & Co., Chicago. 


Spahi. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


INTRODUCTION. 

I. 

In descending the coast of Africa, after 
passing the southern extremity of Moroc- 
co, one travels for several days and nights 
in sight of an interminable country of 
desolation. It is the Sahara, the great 
“sea without water,” which the Moors 
also call “ Beled-el-ateuch,” the land of 
thirst. 

These shores of the desert are five hun- 
dred leagues long, yet there is no harbor 
for the ships which pass that way. 

The solitudes spread everywhere with a 
sad monotony, without a plant or a ves- 
tige of life — only the moving sand-hills, 
the boundless horizons, and the blazing 
light of the sun. 


( 5 ) 


6 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

At last there appears above the sands 
an old, white city, planted amid rare, yel- 
low palm-trees. It is Saint Louis of the 
Senegal, the capital of Senegambia ; its 
mosques, towers, and houses of Moorish 
architecture all seem to sleep there, under 
the burning sun, like those Portuguese 
towns that formerly flourished on the 
coast of Congo — Saint Paul de Loando 
and Saint Felipe de Benguela. 

On approaching the city, one is sur- 
prised to find that it is not built on the 
shore, and that it has not even a harbor, 
nor any communication with the outside 
world. The coast, which is almost straight 
and very low, is as inhospitable as that of 
the Sahara, whose eternal line of breakers 
prevents the approach of ships. 

The two Jaloff villages, Guet-n’dar and 
N’dar-toute, that lie between Saint Louis 
and the sea, are formed of thousands and 
thousands of mud houses, Lilliputian huts, 


The Romance of a Sfiahi. 7 

where swarms a strange population of 
black people. 

This barrier made by the sea, separat- 
ing this country from the rest of the world, 
is the chief cause of its gloom and stag- 
nation. Saint Louis affords no harbor for 
the packet and merchant boats when they 
sail into the other hemisphere, and people 
go there when they are forced to go; but 
no one ever remains there, for it is like 
some vast and silent prison. 

In the northern part of Saint Louis, 
near the mosque, not many years ago, 
there stood a little, old, isolated house, 
owned by a certain Samba-Hamet, a mer- 
chant of some means, who trafficked up 
and down the river. This house was 
whitewashed, and its cracked, brick walls 
and dry, decayed timbers served as the 
abode of legions of insects, white ants, 
and blue lizards. 

Two storks frequented the roof, chat- 


8 The Romance of a Spain. 

tering gravely to the sun, craning their 
necks toward the deserted street when by 
chance a human being passed that way. 

A brittle, thorny palm-tree, the only sign 
of verdure in that vicinity, each day threw 
lightly upon the glowing walls its meager 
shadow. On the branches of the palm, 
there were perched numbers of blue and 
yellow birds, which in France are called 
bengalis . 

Everywhere there is sand — always sand 
— never a piece of moss nor a sprig of 
grass on the arid soil; all is withered and 
scorched by the burning breath of the 
Sahara. 

O, the gloom, the sadness of the iand 
of Africa ! 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 


9 


II. 

On the ground floor of this isolated 
house there dwelt, amid the wreck of her 
fortunes, a horrible old negress named 
Coura-n’diaye, an ancient favorite of a 
great, black king. Here she had installed 
herself with her fantastic rags, her little 
slaves bedecked with glass beads and 
trinkets, her goat, her big-horned sheep, 
and her cadaverous yellow dogs. 

On the upper floor there was a large 
square room, which was reached by an 
outer stair- way of worm-eaten wood. 
Every evening at sunset, a man wearing 
the red uniform and Mussulman fez of a 
spahi mounted the stair-way and entered 
the upper apartment of the house of 
Samba-Hamet. The storks on the roof, 
catching a glimpse of him when he was 


io The Romance of a Spahi. 

yet a great way off, at the other end of 
the deserted street, recognized his step 
and the bright colors of his uniform, and 
permitted him to enter without showing 
any inquietude, as a personage long and 
well known. 

He was a very tall man, and of a pure 
white race, though the sun of Africa had 
already bronzed his face and breast. He 
was also extremely handsome, having large, 
dark eyes, almond-shaped, like those of an 
Arab, and from beneath his fez, which 
was pushed back from his spotless brow, 
there escaped a mass of soft, brown curls. 

His bearing was noble and manly, and 
he held his head boldly erect. Strength 
and suppleness seemed blended in his 
graceful form, which was admirably set off 
by his gay uniform. He was unusually 
serious and pensive, but his smile had a 
feline grace, and disclosed teeth white and 
beautiful. 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 


1 1 


III. 

One day this spahi wore even more 
than usual a thoughtful, serious air, as 
he ascended the wooden stair-way of the 
house of Samba-Hamet. 

On entering the upper apartment, in 
which he seemed to be perfectly at home, 
he looked surprised to find it empty. 
The room was bare, and destitute of 
furniture except for several long benches 
covered with mats, and a tara , a kind 
of sofa of light straw which is made by 
the negroes of the coast of Gambia. 
From the high ceiling were suspended 
parchments and talismans written by the 
priests of Maghreb. 

The spahi approached a chest in one 
corner of the room — a chest ornamented 
with copper bands and sparkling with 


12 The Romance of a Spahi. 

variegated colors, similar to those in 
which the Jaloffs store away their pre- 
cious objects — and, on endeavoring to 
open it, found it shut fast. 

He then threw himself upon the tar a 
and took from his pocket a letter which 
he began to read, after having kissed the 
signature. 

It was a love-letter without a doubt, 
written by some beautiful woman, a fair 
Parisian or romantic senorita, to this 
handsome spahi in Africa, who seemed 
just formed to play the grand role of 
hero in the melodrama of love. 

The letter will probably give us a clue 
to some dramatic adventure from which 
the story will begin. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


13 


IV, 

The letter upon which the spahi had 
pressed his lips bore the post-mark of an 
obscure village of the Cevennes, and was 
written by a poor, old, trembling hand 
unused to holding the pen. The lines 
ran together, and the mistakes were nu- 
merous. It said : 

My Dear Son : This present is to give you 
news of our health, which at this time is good, 
thank God. But your father says he is beginning 
to feel old, and as his eyesight is failing him fast, 
I, your old mother, must take the pen to speak to 
you. You know that I do not write well, so you 
must excuse everything. 

This is to tell you, my dear son, that since you 
left us, nothing has gone well with us; prosperity 
as well as joy left us with you. The year has 
been a hard one on account of a terrible hail 
which fell in this country, and destroyed almost 
everything we had. 


14 The Romance of a Spahi. 

Our cow is sick, and it has cost us a great deal 
to doctor her. 

Since your father returned to this country, his 
day’s labor does not amount to much, for the 
younger men do their work in a shorter time 
than he. 

It is necessary for us to repair a part of the roof, 
which threatens to fall whenever it rains. 

I know that in the army one has not much 
money, but your father says if you can send us 
what you promised, without depriving yourself, it 
will help us greatly. 

The Merys could well assist us, but we do not 
wish to ask it of them, being loath to have them 
think us beggars. We often see your cousin Jeanne 
Mery, who grows more beautiful every day. It 
seems her greatest pleasure to come to us to ask 
after you. She says that she wishes for nothing 
better than to marry you, my, dear Jean, but that 
her father will not hear to it, because, he says, 
you are too poor; and he says, too, you have been 
a bad subject in your day. 

I believe, however, if you win your promotion 
as quartermaster, that on your return to this 
country in your military clothes he will decide in 
your favor. I can die happy if I see you well 


The Romance of a Spahi . 15 

married. You will build a house near to ours, 
which is not fine enough for you. Peyral and I 
draw plans for it every evening. 

Without fail, my dear Jean, send us a little 
money, for I assure you we are in need of it; 
we have not been able to recuperate this year, on 
account of the hail and the cow. 

Adieu, my dear son. The people of the village 
inquire of you, and wish to know when you will 
return. The neighbors all send good wishes, and 
as for myself, you know that I have not had a 
moment of happiness since you left us, three years 
ago. I close, embracing you, as does Peyral. 

Your old mother, who adores you, 

Francoise Peyral. 


i6 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


y. 

Jean, after reading the letter, leaned 
out of the window and began to muse, 
regarding vaguely the great African land- 
scape unrolled before him. 

The pointed silhouettes of the Jaloff 
huts massed by the thousand at his feet, 
and in the distance the great, restless sea, 
with its eternal line of breakers. 

A sickly sun was just sinking behind 
the horizon, still shedding a dull glimmer 
on the desert and the limitless waste of 
sand. A caravan of Moors slowly wound 
its way across the dreary plains, and a 
black cloud of vultures circled in the air. 
And beyond — a point that fixed the eye — 
the cemetery of Sorr, where already lay 
so many of his comrades, mountaineers 
like himself, victims to the fever in that 
terrible climate. 


1 7 


The Romance of a Spain \ 

Oh, that he might return to live near 
his old parents, in a little cottage with 
Jeanne Mery! Why have they exiled 
him to this land of Africa? What is 
there in common between him and this 
strange country? 

It is true, that gay uniform and that 
Arabian fez give him an air of splendor; 
but what a disguise for the poor, little 
peasant of the Cevennes ! 

Jean remained a long time at the win- 
dow, dreaming of his native village. 
Poor warrior of the Senegal ! 

The sun went down, the shadows of 
night fell, and his heart was full of a 
vague sorrow. 

From N’dar-toute he heard the sudden 
clash of the tam-tam, calling the negroes 
to the bamboula, and in the Jaloff huts 
fires were flashing. 

It was an evening in December. A 

rough wind whirled the sand about in 
2 


1 8 The Romance of a Spaki. 

gusts, and it soon began to grow cold, a 
sensation almost unknown in that burning 
country. 

Suddenly the door opened, and a yel- 
low dog of the laobe race (the native dog 
of Africa) entered the room, with the 
stealthy movements of a jackal, and began 
to gambol at his master’s feet. 

At the same time there appeared in the 
door-way a young black girl, laughing 
gayly, who made Jean a brusque, comical 
little courtesy, the reverence of the 
negress, and said, “ Keon ” (good-day). 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 


l 9 


VI. 

The spahi regarded her abstractedly. 
“ Fatou-gaye," he said, in a mixture of 
Creole-French and Jaloff ; “ Fatou-gaye, 
open the chest, that I may get the silver." 

“Tes Khaliss!” responded she, open- 
ing wide her great eyes under their dark 
lashes. “Tes Khaliss!" (pieces of silver) 
she repeated, with the mixture of fear and 
audacity of a child expecting punishment. 

Then she pointed to her ears, from 
which were suspended three pairs of ear- 
rings of exquisite workmanship. 

They were jewels set in the pure gold 
of Gallam, which the black artists have 
the secret of fashioning as they crouch 
on the sands, working mysteriously under 
the shade of their low tents. 

Fatou-gaye had just purchased these 


20 


The Romance of a Spaht . 

long-coveted ornaments with the silver, a 
hundred francs, which Jean had amassed 
little by little, the result of his poor sav- 
ings as a soldier, and which were destined 
for his old parents in France. 

The eyes of the spahi darted lightning ; 
he took down his whip to strike her, but 
his heart failed him, and his arm fell 
helpless to his side. He quickly grew 
calm; he was tender-hearted, Jean Peyral, 
with all his faults. 

He did not even reproach her, for he 
knew it would be useless, and besides, it 
was partly his own fault ; he should have 
concealed the money more carefully. It 
was now necessary to find it elsewhere at 
any price. 

Fatou-gaye knew well hojv to soothe 
and flatter Jean, and as he reclined non- 
chalantly on his tara> she knelt beside 
him on the floor and embraced him with 
her beautiful, shapely arms, encircled with 


21 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

silver bracelets, and leaning her head on 
his breast, regarded him with her dark 
eyes full of fire and passion. 

Jean did not long withstand these warm 
caresses, and soon she had obtained his 
full pardon for her fault. 

He postponed till to-morrow the search 
for the money so anxiously expected at 
the home of his old parents. 









PART I. 


CHAPTER I. 

Three years had elapsed since Jean 
Peyral first planted his foot on the soil 
of Africa, and since his arrival he had 
passed through the many phases of a 
great moral transformation. 

Temperament, climate, and nature had 
gradually wrought the change, and still 
kept him under the spell of their ener- 
vating influence. 

He felt that he was gliding down un- 
known precipices, for to-day he was the 
lover of Fatou-gaye, a dusky young girl 
of the Khassouke race, who had thrown 
over him her seductive charms, enthrall- 
ing his senses as if with the spell of 
her amulets. 

The past history of Jean is not very 

( 23 ) 


24 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

complicated. At the age of twenty, 
chance took him from his mother’s side, 
and he went away with the other sons of 
his mountain village, singing very bravely, 
that he might not shed tears. 

His tall stature and fine form had 
marked him for a cavalryman ; the mys- 
terious fascination for the unknown made 
him choose the corps of the spahis. 

H is childhood was spent in an obscure 
village in the depths of the forests of the 
Cevennes mountains, where he had grown 
like a young oak in the pure mountain 
air. 

His father and mother were the most 
cherished figures of his childhood, and 
deep in his heart there were ineffaceable 
memories of his early happy life— the 
little old-fashioned cottage at the edge 
of the forest, the mountain stream, the 
mossy paths, his many youthful advent- 
ures and liberty. 


25 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

In his boyhood he knew nothing of the 
world outside of the village, which to 
him had no boundary but the wild country 
inhabited by shepherds. He spent whole 
days in the forests wandering under the 
great oaks, sometimes in the deep reverie 
of a young shepherd, and then again 
savagely climbing the trees and breaking 
their branches like the wild, untamed boy 
that he was. 

On Sundays he accompanied his parents 
to church, attired in clothes very fine for 
a mountaineer, always holding by the 
hand little Jeanne Mery, whom they took 
with them as they passed the house of 
his uncle Mery. 

As he grew older, that spirit of inde- 
pendence and the desire to roam increased. 
He appropriated horses for long rides, and 
poached with an old gun that hardly ever 
went off. His frequent encounters with the 
gamekeeper greatly mortified his uncle 


26 The Romance of a Spahi. 

Mery, who dreamed of his learning a 
trade and of his making himself a useful 
and respectable citizen. 

It was true, he had been a “bad sub- 
ject but the people in the village loved 
him, even those who had suffered most 
from his youthful misdemeanors, for he 
had a frank and noble heart, and no one 
could resist his smile. 

His uncle Mery, with his sermons and 
threats, had no influence over him ; but 
when he found that he had wounded his 
mother, his heart swelled within him, and 
the great, strapping youth would lower his 
head and weep. 

He was an untamed colt, but not a 
libertine. 

The village, with its environments of 
simplicity and innocence, shielded him 
from the unhealthy contagions and pre- 
cocious depravity of the dissipated and 
abandoned of large cities ; so that, when 


27 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

his twenty years suggested it was time 
for him to enter the service, Jean was as 
pure and almost as innocent of the evils 
of life as a little child. 


28 


The Romance of a Spain. 


II. 

But after awhile he encountered sur- 
prises of every kind, and, in passing 
through a large city, he followed his com- 
panions into resorts of debauchery, and 
for awhile his head was turned with the 
novelty and fascination of such a life. 
But at last his soul revolted with disgust 
at its revelations ; and in a few days a ves- 
sel bore him away — very far away — on a 
calm, blue sea, and landed him, bewil- 
dered, exiled, by the side of the Senegal. 

It was a day in the month of Novem- 
ber, the time when the great baobabs 
shed the last leaves of autumn on the yel- 
low sands, that the first curious gaze of 
Jean Peyral fell on the corner of the 
globe where his destiny had abandoned 
him to spend five years of his life. 


2 9 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

The strange country made a vivid im- 
pression on his mind, and the life of a 
spahi pleased him, for he took great de- 
light in having a horse, in curling his 
mustache, in wearing his Arabian fez, his 
big saber, and his red uniform. He also 
made the discovery that he was hand- 
some and attractive. 


30 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


III. 

November is the belle saison on the 
Senegal, corresponding with our winters 
in France, and it is then that the heat 
decreases in intensity, and the dry wind 
of the desert succeeds the terrible storms 
of summer. Not a drop of rain falls, and 
each day the soil is unceasingly, unmerci- 
fully scorched and burnt by a devouring 
sun. 

This is the season when lizards abound, 
water fails in the cisterns, marshes dry 
up, vegetation withers, and even the cac- 
tus and thorny fig-tree refuse to open 
their dull- yellow blossoms. But the 
evenings are cool, and at sunset a strong 
sea-breeze rises, which causes the break- 
ers to roar and l^.sh the shore, and shakes 
down pitilessly the last sad autumn leaves. 


3i 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

Sad autumn, which brings with it 
neither the long evenings, as in France, 
nor the charm of the frosts, the harvest, 
and golden fruits ! For there is no fruit 
in that God-forsaken country ; nothing but 
the arachis and the bitter pistachio. 

As far as the eye can see, there are 
great hot plains, gloomy and desolate, 
covered with withered herbs, and here 
and there, side by side with the diminu- 
tive, stunted palms, grow the colossal 
baobabs, the mastodons of the vegetable 
kingdom, whose gigantic branches are in- 
habited by vultures, bats, and lizards. 


32 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


IV. 

The ennui which Jean now so often felt 
was to him an entirely new sensation ; it 
was a kind of vague melancholy, a long- 
ing for the mountains, the village, and the 
cottage of his old parents. 

The spahis, his new companions — a 
great many of whom had carried their 
formidable sabers into India and Algeria 
— had caught there, in the ale-houses of 
these maritime towns, a spirit of libertin- 
ism, and their contact with the world had 
furnished them with a ready stock of cant 
phrases and cynic pleasantries, which they 
were always ready to apply to everything. 

Brave fellows they were at heart, joy- 
ous comrades ; but they had ideas which 
Jean could not understand, and pleasures 
which were revolting to him. 


The Romance of a Spahi . 33 

For Jean was a dreamer, because he 
was a mountaineer. Reflection is almost 
unknown to the giddy and foolish popula- 
tion of large cities ; but among men reared 
in the country, among sailors and the sons 
of fishermen who have grown up in the 
paternal bark amid the dangers of the 
sea, we meet with men who dream — true, 
silent poets, who comprehend everything, 
but who have not the gift to put their 
thoughts into words, and so they remain 
forever untranslated. 

Every evening Jean walked on the great 
sea-shore when the sands were rosy and 
purple in the light of indescribable sun- 
sets. He bathed in the mighty breakers 
of the coast of Africa, and dreamed him- 
self once more a child as he rolled in the 
waves that covered the sands. 

The beach at twilight always swarmed 
with black men returning to the villages 

laden with sheaves of millet, and fisher- 
3 


34 The Romance of a Spahi. 

men bringing- in their nets, followed by 
crowds of noisy women and children. 
There are wonderful fish in the river Sen- 
egal ; the women carry on their heads 
baskets full of them, and the young black 
girls return to their lodgings crowned 
with crawling fishes pierced through the 

gills- 

At each step unexpected pictures greet- 
ed his eye, warm and glowing in the weird 
light; for there are many strange and un- 
familiar scenes in that country — extraor- 
dinary figures from the interior, and pict- 
uresque caravans of Moors who descend 
by the Cape of Barbary. 

The crests of the purple sand-hills and 
the great, gloomy desert gleam for a mo- 
ment in the last rays of the sun, which 
fades away in a bloody vapor, and all the 
black people throw themselves on their 
faces to offer up their evening prayer. 
It is the holy hour of Islam, and from 


The Romance of a Spain. 35 

Mecca to the coast of the Sahara the 
name of Mahomet is heard on every 
tongue, passing like a mysterious breath 
over the land of Africa, growing fainter 
and fainter as it crosses the Soudan, final- 
ly dying away on these black lips on the 
shores of the great, restless sea. 

The old Jaloff priests in their flowing 
robes turn toward the sea in reciting their 
prayers, and the whole sea-shore is cov- 
ered with prostrate forms. A mighty 
silence ensues, and night descends sud- 
denly, with the rapidity peculiar to that 
country of the sun. 

At the close of day Jean returned to 
• the barracks in the southern part of Saint 
Louis, for at twilight all was silent and 
tranquil there. His comrades were gener- 
ally scattered about the streets in search 
of pleasure, and it was then that these 
isolated quarters seemed to him very sad 
and lonely, and he thought of his mother. 


3 ^ 


The Roma7ice of a Spahi. 


V. 

In the southern part of Saint Louis 
there were a number of ancient brick 
houses of Moorish architecture, which in 
the dead of night were always brilliantly 
illuminated, when elsewhere silence and 
darkness reigned. From these houses, 
which are inhabited by negroes, would 
issue strange odors developed by the 
tropical heat, and the night was made 
hideous with infernal noises. 

There the spahis were masters of the 
scene ; it was there the poor warriors in 
the red uniform went to make an uproar, 
stupefying themselves with alcohol, which 
they poured down in unreasonable quan- 
tities, from necessity or bravado. But 
Jean avoided these disreputable places, 
and prudently stored away his small sav- 


37 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

ings, thinking even then of his happy re- 
turn home. He was very wise and seri- 
ous, yet his companions did not ridicule 
him, for the handsome Muller, a big Al- 
satian youth who was accounted very 
knowing at the barracks on account of 
his vast experience in duelling and other 
thrilling adventures, had taken Jean into 
his favor, and somehow the others were 
always of the same mind as Fritz Muller. 

However, Jean’s best friend was Nyaor- 
fall, a black spahi, an African giant of 
the magnificent race of Foota-Diallonke. 
He was a singular character, on whose 
lips was always a mysterious smile — a 
beautiful statue in black marble. 

Such was the friend of Jean, and he 
often accompanied him to his home at the 
village of Guet-n’dar, where the black 
made him sit among his wives upon a 
white mat, and offered him, in negro hospi- 
tality, the Kouss-Kouss and the gonrous . 


38 


The Romance of a Spain, 


VI. 

At Saint Louis the days passed by with 
the dreary monotony characteristic of life 
in all small colonial towns, but the mild 
season of the year brought a little anima- 
tion to the streets of the necropolis; for 
every day at sunset the women whom fever 
had spared promenaded on the Govern- 
ment square, and on the avenue of yellow 
palms leading to the village of Guet-n’dar. 

They were attired in European cos- 
tumes, which gave one an impression of 
Europe in that land of exile. Indeed, 
the great Government square, with its 
symmetrical buildings, was not unlike a 
portion of some southern town of Eu- 
rope, apart from that immense horizon 
of sand — that infinite breadth of space 
defining afar its interminable line. 


39 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

The handsome spahi always walked 
alone with a serious and reserved air, and 
soon awakened the curiosity of the inhab- 
itants of Saint Louis, who imagined him 
the hero of some romantic adventure. 

Among the gay promenaders who often 
threw glances on Jean, was a woman 
more beautiful than all the rest, and she 
it was particularly who seemed to regard 
him with peculiar interest. 

Some people called her a mulattress, but 
her skin was so white that others swore 
she was a Parisian. Her complexion was 
very white, and her hair was of a reddish- 
blonde — the blonde of the mulattress. 
Her eyes were dark and dreamy, half- 
closed, and full of a Creole languor. 

Although she was the wife of a rich 
river merchant, the people of Saint Louis 
addressed her disdainfully by her Chris- 
tian name, as a woman of color, and she 
was known to all as Cora. 


40 The Romance of a Spahi. 

The other women soon discovered from 
her toilets that she had lived in Paris, and 
even Jean discerned that her flowing 
robes, severely simple as they were, pos- 
sessed a peculiar grace which the others 
had not. He saw, too, that she was very 
beautiful, and he felt a tremor, a kind of 
delicious thrill, when he passed her, for 
she always lowered her eyes beneath his 
gaze. 

“ She loves you, Peyral,” said the hand- 
some Muller, with the air of a man well 
versed in the affairs of the heart. 


The Romance of a Spaki. 


41 


VII. 

It was true, she did love him after a 
fashion, and one day she invited him to 
her house to tell him of it. 

Poor Jean ! the two following months 
slipped away amid enchanted dreams. 
This unknown luxury, this elegant, per- 
fumed woman strangely stirred his pure 
but ardent heart. Love, which he had 
heretofore regarded cynically, now held 
him a slave. And it had all been be- 
stowed upon him unsought, unreservedly, 
like those grand fortunes in fairy tales, 
the thought of which often filled him 
with disquietude, for there was to him 
something immodest and revolting in 
this avowal of love. But he did not 
allow his mind to dwell upon that part 
of it, for in her presence he was intoxi- 


4 2 The Romance of a Spahi. 

cated with love, and thought of nothing 
else. 

Then he began to devote much time to 
his toilet. He perfumed himself, and 
curled his mustache and brown hair, and 
it seemed to him, as to all young lovers, 
that he began to live the day he found 
his mistress. 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 


43 


VIII. 

Cora loved him, it is true, yet her heart 
was not much involved. 

A mulattress of Bourbon, she had been 
reared in all the idleness and luxury of a 
rich Creole ; but the white women around 
her kept her at a distance with a merci- 
less disdain, for, as a file de couleur , she 
was repulsive to them. The same race 
prejudice followed her to Saint Louis, 
and though she was the wife of one of 
the most influential merchants on the 
river, they avoided her as a creature unfit 
for their association. 

In Paris, however, she had a number of 
refined lovers, and as her fortune enabled 
her to cut a considerable figure while in 
France, she enjoyed elegant vice to her 
heart’s content. 


44 


The Romance of a Spahi ’ 

Besides, she had a lovely face and form; 
beautiful, soft hands ; languid, fascinating 
manners ; and then, too, she was sur- 
rounded by an atmosphere of romance 
and mystery. 

She loved Jean because he was tall and 
handsome ; she was delighted with his 
boyish, ingenuous manners, and, above all, 
she was pleased with his fine red uniform. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


45 


IX. 

The house in which Cora lived was a 
large brick building, as white as an Ara- 
bian caravansary, with something of an 
Egyptian aspect, like the rest of the 
houses in the most ancient quarters of 
Saint Louis. 

Below, there was a great court, where 
camels and Moors of the desert came to 
crouch upon the sand, and where also 
swarmed a strange mixture of dogs, 
ostriches, and black slaves. 

Above, there were innumerable veran- 
das resting on square columns, resem- 
bling the terraces of Babylon. 

The upper apartments were reached by 
white marble stair-ways of a monumental 
look. 

It was all in ruins, and as gloomy as 


46 The Romance of a Spahi. 

everything else at Saint Louis, a city 
whose glory has long since departed — -a 
colony of other days. 

Still there was a certain air of grandeur 
about the salon, with its seigniorial dimen- 
sions and furniture of a hundred years 
ago. It was haunted with blue lizards, 
cats, and parrots ; even gazelles sported 
there over the fine mats of Guinea. 

Black slaves, listlessly dragging along 
their sandals, crossed and recrossed it 
with a mournful tread, leaving behind 
them an acrid odor of soumere and scented 
amulets. 

An indescribable melancholy of exile 
and solitude rested on all things, and it 
grew more intense during the hours of 
evening, when there was perfect silence 
save ’for the unceasing plaint of the Afri- 
can breakers. 

In the apartment occupied by Cora 
everything was bright and modern. The 


47 


The Romance of a Spahl. 

furniture, which had recently arrived from 
Paris, was fresh, comfortable, and elegant, 
and the air was full of the odors of es- 
sences bought from the most fashionable 
perfumers of the boulevard. 

It was here that Jean spent hours of 
ecstasy ; it affected him as the chamber 
of some enchanted palace, for he had 
never dreamed of such splendor and 
luxury. 

This woman had become his life, his 
happiness, and she, a creature blase and 
weary of other pleasures and amusements, 
desired to possess him, body and soul. 

With the ingenuity of a Creole, she 
succeeded in appearing to her lover 
younger than she really was, playing with 
admirable skill and cunning the irresisti- 
ble comedy of love. 

She had her wish: she possessed Jean, 
body and soul. 


48 The Romance of a Spahi. 


X. 

Among the captives in the house of 
Cora there was a queer little negress 
named Fatou-gaye, of whom Jean had 
taken scarcely any notice. 

She had recently been brought to Saint 
Louis and sold as a slave by the Moors, 
who had taken her captive in one of their 
raids on the country of the Khassoukes. 

Her malicious disposition and fierce, 
independent spirit caused her to be 
consigned to a very obscure place in 
the domestic arrangements of the house- 
hold. 

Not having reached a marriageable age, 
at which time the negresses of Saint 
Louis consider it proper to clothe them- 
selves, she was generally quite nude, 
wearing only a necklace of charms and 


49 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

glass beads. Her hair was carefully 
shorn, except of four little locks, which 
were plaited and oiled, and placed at reg- 
ular intervals from her forehead to the 
nape of her neck. Each of these plaits 
terminated in a coral bead, except the 
middle one, which was reserved for some- 
thing more precious. This one was orna- 
mented with a sequin of gold, very an- 
cient, which must have been brought 
originally from Arabia, and whose pere- 
grinations across the Soudan no doubt 
were long and complicated. 

Without this queer head-dress, one 
would have been impressed with the 
beauty and regularity of Fatou-gaye’s 
features, for she was of the Khassouke 
type in all its purity, possessing a fine 
Grecian form, and skin as smooth as pol- 
ished onyx. Her teeth were white and 
dazzling, her expression mobile and ani- 
mated ; but the most attractive feature of 

4 


50 The Romance of a Spa hi. 

this strange little face were her dark, brill- 
iant eyes, encircled with blue, moving 
restlessly about under their black eyelids, 
and which at times were as soft as velvet, 
and then again as bright and sparkling as 
diamonds, changing with the passions of 
her capricious heart. 

When Jean went to the house of Cora 
he sometimes encountered Fatou-gaye, 
and, as she saw him approaching, she 
would envelope herself in the folds of a 
bright blue bon-bon , her holiday attire, 
and advance, smiling, to meet him, the 
soft and flute-like voice of the neeress 
assuming its most wheedling intonations. 

Hanging her head with the affected air 
of a monkey, she would say : 

“ May man coper, souma toubab.” 
(Give me a copper, white man.) 

This was the refrain of all the children 
at Saint Louis, and Jean was used to it. 
If he was in a good humor, and had a sou 


The Romance of a Spa hi, 51 

in his pocket, he gave it to Fatou-ga^e, 
and she, strange to say, instead of buying 
sweetmeats, as did the other children, 
would conceal herself in some obscure 
corner and sew the money carefully in the 
sachets of her amulets. 


52 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


XI. 

One night in February Jean suspected 
something was wrong. 

Cora had requested him to leave be- 
fore midnight, and at the moment of his 
departure he imagined he heard footsteps 
in the adjoining apartment, as if someone 
awaited her there. 

At midnight he bade her adieu, and 
left the house ; but in a little while he re- 
turned stealthily, walking noiselessly on 
the sands, and, climbing the wall to a 
balcony, he peered through the half-open 
door into the chamber of Cora. 

A young man in the uniform of an 
officer of the Marines had taken his 
place beside Cora, and he seemed to be 
perfectly at home there, reclining grace- 
fully on a sofa, with an air of ease and 
familiarity. 


53 


The Romance of a Spahi . 

She sat near him, conversing with him 
in a language which Jean did not under- 
stand. They were really French words, 
but Jean did not comprehend them. To 
him they were mocking enigmas, these 
brief words, and far beyond the reach of 
his understanding. 

Cora was changed. Her expression 
was not the same, and a peculiar smile 
played on her lips. 

Jean trembled ; the blood rushed to his 
heart, and in his head he felt a roaring 
like the sea. He was ashamed of being 
there ; yet he wished to remain and 
further comprehend. 

He heard his own name prontfunced, 
for they were speaking of him, and he 
drew nearer, supporting himself by the 
wall, to hear the words more distinctly. 

“ You are wrong, Cora,” said the young 
officer, tranquilly, with a perceptible smile 
on his lips. “ In the first place, he is very 


54 The Romance of a Spa hi. 

handsome, this youth, and then you love 
him.” 

“ That is true,” she replied ; “ I love 
you both, and I have chosen you because 
your name is Jean, also; if I had not 
taken this precaution, I would long ago 
have betrayed myself by using your 
name; I am so thoughtless.” 

She then drew nearer to the new Jean 
and caressed him, speaking to him soft, 
endearing words, lisped in the winning 
accents of a Creole, and on his lips she 
pressed kisses warm and passionate. 
***** 

But the officer had seen the obscure fig- 
ure of Jean Peyral gazing at them through 
the open door with blood-shot eyes. 

He said not a word, but made a sign to 
Cora with his hand. 

The spahi stood there, transfixed, im- 
movable ; but when he saw that he was 
discovered, he retreated hastily into *"he 


55 


The Romance of a Spahi, 

shadows. Cora suddenly advanced to- 
ward him, her countenance distorted with 
the look of a wild animal. She frightened 
him; she was near enough to touch him. 

Closing the door with a gesture of 
rage, she placed across it a bar of iron, 
and all was over. 

This mulattress, the grandchild of a 
slave, was miserably disguised as an 
elegant lady of gentle birth ; for she had 
neither remorse, fear, nor pity. 

***** 

After awhile Cora and her lover heard 
a noise as of a body falling to the ground, 
falling heavily, making a great noise in 
the silence of the night ; and then, to- 
ward morning, a sound as of someone 
feeling his way in the darkness. 

And Jean Peyral, regaining conscious- 
ness, raised himself up and crept away, 
timidly, confusedly, in the gloom of the 
night. 


56 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 


XII. 

Staggering along like a drunken man, 
sinking ankle-deep in the sand of the de- 
serted street, Jean went as far as Guet- 
n’dar, the negro village with its thou- 
sands of thatched roofs. 

In the darkness he stumbled over men 
and women asleep on the ground, wrap- 
ped in ghostly garments of white, who 
appeared to his excited imagination as 
phantom people. 

He rushed blindly along, and at last' 
found himself on the sea-shore. 

Hundreds of crabs, crawling about on 
the beach, fled at the sound of his foot- 
steps. He remembered to have seen, 
once, a dead body, cast up on the sea- 
shore, torn and mangled by crabs, and a 
thrill of horror seized him at the thought 
of such a death. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 57 

The breakers and the surging waves 
were already shining in the first glimmer 
of dawn. They had for him a peculiar 
fascination. How fresh and cool they 
would feel to his burning head ! In their 
beneficent humidity death would seem 
less cruel. 

Then he thought of his mother ; of 
Jeanne, the little friend and sweetheart of 
his boyhood, and he no longer wished to 
die. 

He sank upon the sands, and soon fell 
into a deep, unnatural sleep. 


58 The Romance of a Spahi . 


XIII. 

It had been daylight three hours; but 
Jean slept on. 

He dreamed of his childhood in the 
forests of the Cevennes ; he was a child 
again, roaming with his mother in the 
shadows of the grand old oaks, where the 
ground was covered with lichens and 
tender grass, gathering bluebells and 
heather. 

***** 

At last he awoke and stared around 
him, bewildered. The sands were glow- 
ing in the heat of the torrid sun ; black 
women wended their way over the burn- 
ing soil, singing strange and unfamiliar 
songs ; great vultures passed and repassed 
in the air above him, and in his ears was 
the shrill hissing of the grasshoppers. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 59 

He discovered that his head was shel- 
tered from the burning rays of the sun by 
an awning of blue cloth supported on 
sticks driven in the sand, which threw 
over him, with its fantastic folds, a cool, 
gray shadow. 

The pattern of the cloth was familiar 
to him, and on turning his head he per- 
ceived Fatou-gaye sitting near him, re- 
garding him anxiously with her great, 
dark eyes. 

She had followed him and improvised 
this awning as a protection from the tor- 
rid heat; it was her holiday dress of 
bright blue cloth, which Jean had often 
seen her wear. 

She had crouched there a long time in 
a kind of ecstasy, kissing his eyelids softly 
when she could do so unobserved — very 
softly, for fear of awakening him, for then 
he would hasten away, and she would no 
longer have him there to herself alone. 


60 The Romance of a Spahi. 

“ It is I, white man,” she said, with an 
air of tragic seriousness, and in an incom- 
prehensible jargon. “ I have done this 
because I knew that the sun of Saint 
Louis was not good for the toubab of 
France. I know well there was another 
lover who came to see her, for I kept 
awake all night to listen. I was hidden 
away under the stair-way among the 
gourds, and when you fell at the door I 
saw you, and when you went away I fol- 
lowed you.” 

Jean looked at her in astonishment, his 
eyes full of gentleness and gratitude, for 
he was deeply touched. 

“ Do not speak of this, little Fatou,” 
he said ; “ but return quickly to your mis- 
tress, and I will go to the barracks. Do 
not tell anyone you found me lying on 
the shore.” 

And he caressed her gently, as he would 
scratch the neck of a little tame kitten 


The Romance of a Spahi . 61 

that came every night to the barracks and 
curled at the foot of his bed. 

But she, thrilling under the innocent 
caress, lowered her head and drooped her 
eyelids. With a choking sensation in 
her throat, she gathered up her holiday 
garment, folded it carefully, and went 
away, trembling with joy. 


62 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 


XIV. 

Poor Jean ! suffering was a new thing 
to him, and he rebelled against the un- 
known power that was crushing his heart 
with ba^ids of iron. 

His soul was filled with concentrated 
rage ; rage against the man whom he 
wished to destroy ; rage against the 
woman whom he longed to murder with a 
blow from his whip or his spur. He was 
consumed with an intense desire for re- 
venge. 

That same day he obtained permission 
to accompany Nyaor-fall, the black spahi, 
to a point north of Saint Louis, in the 
direction of the Cape of Barbary, to ex- 
ercise their horses. 

They galloped furiously across the des- 
ert under a somber, threatening sky, for 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 63 

in that country the winter skies are fear- 
ful and marvelous, and the banks of black 
clouds hang so low on the horizon that 
the desert beneath them has the appear- 
ance of an endless waste of snow. 

As the two spahis rode along, their 
burnos floating behind them in the 
breeze, enormous vultures stalking leis- 
urely about on the sands were startled 
and took their flight, describing fantastic 
circles in the air above them. 

At nightfall Jean and Nyaor returned 
to the barracks, weary and exhausted, on 
jaded steeds. 

The next morning, after the excitement 
of the previous day, Jean was prostrated 
with a burning fever, and they laid him, 
helpless and unconscious, - on his poor 
gray mattress, and carried him to the hos- 
pital. 


64 The Romance of a Spahi. 


XV. 

Noon! The great hospital is as silent 
as the grave. 

Noon ! The grasshopper chirps shrilly, 
and the Nubian women, with plaintive 
voices, sing vague and dreamy airs. 

On all the desert plains of the Senegal 
the vertical rays of the sun beat down 
fiercely, and the great horizons dapple 
and quiver in the torrid heat. 

Noon ! The hospital is as silent as the 
grave. 

The long galleries and corridors are 
empty. A clock on a high, white wall 
marks, with slow-moving hands, the mid- 
day hour. Around its dim and faded dial 
is the sad inscription : “ Vitce fugaces 

exhibet koras” 

The twelve strokes of the weak bell 


1 


The Romance of a Spahi. 65 

sound feeble and muffled in the hot air, 
but they reach the ears of the dying, who, 
in their feverish wakefulness, imagine it is 
the solemn tolling of a knell. 

Noon! The mournful hour when the 
sick die ! 

***** 

In an open chamber on the upper floor 
the silence of death reigns, and only 
whispered words are spoken. 

There is no perceptible sound except 
the soft footsteps of the good Sister 
Pacome as she walks lightly on the mats, 
with a look of agitation on her serious 
face, which is so pale and sallow under 
her great white cap. A physician and a 
priest are also there, sitting near a bed 
which is draped in white curtains. 

Through the open windows there is 
nothing to be seen but the sun and the 
sand, the distant blue lines of the bound- 
less horizons, and the blazing light. 


66 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

Will the spahi die? Has the moment 
come for his soul to take its flight at this 
stifling hour of midday, so far away from 
home and his mother ? 

Where will he find a resting-place on 
these desert sands ? 

***** 

No, he will not die to-day ; the doctor, 
who has waited there to see him breathe 
his last, quietly retires. 

Evening, with its fresh, invigorating 
breezes, brings relief to the sick and 
dying; Jean becomes more calm, and his 
fever decreases. 

Crouching before the door, on the 
street below, is a little negress, playing 
osselets with the white pebbles. She has 
been there since morning, dissimulating, 
for fear of attracting the attention of 
those who pass by, and of being driven 
away. She was afraid to make inquiries, 
and she well knew that, if he died, his 


6 / 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

body would be borne through that door, 
over yonder to the lonely cemetery of 
Sorr. 


68 The Romance of a Spain. 


XV I. 

For a week longer his fever continued, 
with delirium each day until noon. They 
awaited anxiously the crisis, and at last 
the disease was vanquished, and the 
danger past. 

Those who have had fever on the 
banks of the Senegal well know the fearful 
hours of sleep and torpor that weigh so 
heavily on the sick during the warm mid- 
day hours. 

One day, just before noon, Jean fell 
into a kind of trance, full of suffering’ and 
confused visions. He believed that he 
was dying, and he became unconscious. 

At four o’clock he awoke and asked for 
water. The visions fled, retreating into 
the distant corners of the room, behind 
the curtains, then vanished entirely. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 69 

He no longer felt as if they were pour- 
ing burning lead upon his head, for he 
was better. 

Among the forms, real and imaginary, 
smiling and grimacing, that floated around 
him, he sometimes saw the lover of Cora 
standing at his bedside, regarding him 
with a look of pity. It was a dream, no 
doubt, like the visions he had of his 
native village and the beloved ones, who 
stood near him with strange miens and 
distorted faces. 

The most singular thing about it was 
that, since he dreamed he saw him there, 
he no longer hated him. 

One evening, when his head was per- 
fectly clear and all the confused visions 
had vanished, he saw standing before him, 
at the foot of the bed, the young officer, 
in the same uniform he wore that night at 
the house of Cora, his blue sleeves glitter- 
ing with golden stripes. Jean raised his 


70 The Romance of a Spa hi. 

head and regarded him with astonish- 
ment, at the same time extending his 
feeble arm to ascertain if there really was 
anyone there. 

The young man, seeing that he was 
recognized, instead of disappearing, as he 
generally did, took the hand of Jean, and, 
pressing it, said, simply, “ Pardon.” 

Tears, the first that he had shed for 
years, flowed from the eyes of the spahi, 
and his heart felt lighter. 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 


7i 


XVII. 

His convalescence was of short dura- 
tion ; the fever once conquered, his youth 
and strength soon effected his recovery. 

But he could not forget, and at times 
his mental anguish was intense. He 
sometimes indulged in foolish thoughts of 
vengeance, and he became almost savage ; 
but these moods were fleeting, and he 
would say to himself that he would be 
willing to endure almost any humiliation 
to possess Cora as before. 

The officer of the Marines, his new 
friend, often came to sit at his bedside. 

He spoke to Jean very gently, as he 
would to an erring child, although he was 
scarcely so old as the spahi. 

“ Jean,” he said, one day, “Jean, you 
know that woman ; well, if it will make 


72 The Romance of a Spahi . 

you calmer, I give you my word of honor 
that I have not seen her since the night 
you remember. There are many things 
in the world of which you yet have no 
knowledge — later on you will understand. 
You will also understand that it is very 
foolish to grieve over so small a matter. 
As to Cora, I wish you to swear to me 
that you will never see her again.” 

This was the only allusion he ever made 
to her, and Jean, having made the prom- 
ise, felt less wretched. 

Undoubtedly there were many things 
he did not understand. There was a so- 
ciety advanced far beyond his knowledge ; 
tranquil and refined perversities which his 
imagination had never pictured. 

And he soon began to love this friend, 
who, though still somewhat of a mystery 
to him, was so kind after being so cynical, 
and looked at things with such an air of 
ease and indifference. 


73 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

He had come to offer Jean his protec- 
tion because of the anguish he had caused 
him; but he only made him an offer of 
protection, not of advancement ; he never 
touched on that, and Jean’s youthful 
heart was yet filled with the bitterness of 
its first despair. 


74 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


XVIII. 

It was nearly midnight at the house of 
Dame Virginie Scolastique. 

The cabaret was large and gloomy, and, 
like other disreputable places, the doors 
were closed and secured with heavy bars 
of iron. 

A little fetid lamp threw a sickly light 
upon a confused mass of objects, stirring 
about painfully in an atmosphere redolent 
of smoke, absinthe, musk, and spices. 

Upon the table and on the floor were 
broken glasses, bottles, and various gar- 
ments dragged along by the sabers of the 
spahis in a sea of beer and alcohol. 

The feast had been joyous and the 
noise uproarious; but now it was over, 
both song and tumult, and was followed 
by the drowsiness and depression which 
always comes after hard drinking. 


75 


The Romance of a Spaki. 

The spahis were there ; some of them 
leaning on the tables, with dull, sunken 
eyes and beastly smiles, and others, more 
respectable, striving to overcome their 
drunkenness, were holding their heads up 
proudly, their eyes, full of an inexpressi- 
ble gloom, resting gravely on the scene. 

In the distance — if one had listened — 
could be heard the cry of the jackal roam- 
ing around the cemetery of Sorr, where 
many among the revelers there already 
had their places marked on the desert 
sands. 

Dame Virginie was copper-colored and 
thick-lipped, and around her head was 
bound a Madras handkerchief of gor- 
geous colors. 

She was drunk also. Lying near her on 
the floor was a tall young spahi of a fine, 
robust figure, and hair as golden as ripe 
wheat. He was unconscious, and on his 
forehead was a deep gash. Dame Vir- 


y6 The Romance of a Spain. 

ginie, aided by a black slave, was spong- 
ing the wound with cold water and a vin- 
egar compress. Neither pity nor sensi- 
bility prompted her to do this, but rather 
a fear of the police. 

She was greatly disquieted, for the 
blood continued to flow ; it had already 
filled a dish, and as it could not be ar- 
rested, fear sobered the woman. 

Jean was there, seated in one corner of 
the room, more intoxicated than all the 
rest; yet he sat upright in his chair, his 
eyes fixed and gloomy. It was he who 
had wounded his comrade with a bar of 
iron snatched from the door, which he 
still held in his clenched hand, unconscious 
of the blow he had given. 

A month had elapsed since his recov- 
ery from the fever, and every evening 
since then he could be seen dragging him- 
self into dens of iniquity, in the first 
ranks of scoffers and debauches. 


77 


The Romance of a Spaki . 

There was much of boyish recklessness 
in his behavior, it is true ; nevertheless, 
he had run a terrible course since the 
month of his suffering. 

He had devoured immoral romances, 
where all was new to his imagination, and 
otherwise abandoned himself to unhealthy 
extravagances, completing the round of 
revelry and dissipation at Saint Louis, 
where he made an easy conquest of every 
woman with whom he was thrown, his 
good looks assuring him possession with- 
out resistance. 

And then he began to drink. 

You who lead domestic lives, seated 
peacefully with your families around the 
fireside, judge them not harshly, the sail- 
ors, soldiers, and those whom destiny has 
thrown, with their ardent natures, into ab- 
normal conditions of life, upon the great 
seas or in the distant countries of the sun, 
amid unheard-of privations and influences 


yS The Romatice of a Spa hi. 

of which you know nothing. Judge them 
not harshly, poor exiles ! 

Then Jean began to drink, and he 
drank more than his companions ; he 
drank terribly. 

Heretofore he had remained pure and 
uncorrupted in spite of all his tempta- 
tions, and he still retained the manners of 
a great, untamed boy. When the pen- 
sioners of Dame Virginie came near 
enough to touch him, he scattered them 
with the end of his whip as unclean ani- 
mals, and they began to regard him as a 
fetich man, whom they dared not ap- 
proach, and the miserable little creatures 
no longer attempted to beguile him. 

He was terribly savage when he was 
intoxicated, when he lost his head, with 
that great physical force unchained. 

This evening he had been startled by a 
random word about one of his amours — 
and he remembered nothing more, but sat 


79 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

there immovable, still clutching in his 
hand the bloody iron bar. 

Suddenly his eyes darted lightning ; it 
was the old hag he wanted now, and 
without any apparent motive ; but, pos- 
sessed with the unbridled rage of a 
drunken man, he raised himself half-way 
from his chair, furious and menacing. 

The old woman uttered a hoarse cry, 
and for a moment she trembled with fear. 

'‘Hold him!” she fairly screamed to 
the drowsy forms of those who were 
asleep under the tables. 

Some heads were raised, and one lan- 
guid hand attempted to hold Jean back 
by his coat, but this help was not suffi- 
cient. 

“ Give me something to drink, old 
witch !” he cried. “Something to drink, 
old night hag! Give me something to 
drink, I say ! ” 

“Yes, yes,” she replied, in a voice 


80 The Romance of a Spa hi. 

shaking with fear. “Yes, here is some- 
thing to drink. Bring me some absinthe 
quickly, to finish him — absinthe dashed 
with brandy.” 

She did not consider expense on such 
occasions. 

Jean drank it all at one draught, and 
dashing the glass against the wall, he fell 
to the floor like a thunderbolt. 

“ That finished him !” chuckled the 
old woman; “there is no danger in him 
now.” 

She was very strong, this old Virginie 
Scolastique, and solidly built ; and being 
sobered all at once, with the assistance of 
a black slave and the little negresses, she 
lifted Jean, an inanimate lump. After 
having searched his pockets in order to 
take from them the last pieces of silver, 
she opened the door and threw him out. 

Jean fell heavily to the ground, his arms 
outstretched on the sands. 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 81 

Then the old hag, vomiting a torrent of 
vituperation, slammed to the door, which 
closed with a horrible, grating noise. 

And all was silent. The wind blew 
mournfully from the direction of the cem- 
etery, and the only sounds to break the 
great calm of midnight were the lugubri- 
ous yells of the jackals in a sinister con- 
cert over the resurrected bodies of the 
dead. 


© 


82 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


XIX. 

FRANCOISE PEYRAL TO HER SON. 

My Dear Jean : We have received no response 
to our last letter, and Peyral says it has been a 
long time since we have heard from you. I can 
see that he suffers greatly each day when Toinon 
passes by with his mail-box and says there is 
nothing for us. I also feel great anxiety, but I 
always believe that the good God will take care of 
you, my dear son, for I pray to Him very often that 
He will allow no misfortune to befall you. 

Your father says he understands how it is, be- 
cause he was in the army, and that he has seen 
rough roads for young men who are not prudent 
in their selection of companions, and who allow 
themselves to be led into drinking. And he warns 
you against association with wicked women, who 
will surely bring you to grief in the end. I say 
this to please your father; as for myself, 1 am sure 
that my dear boy is prudent, and that he has 
something in his heart which will keep him aloof 
from all such evils. 


\ 


The Romance of a Spahi . 83 

Next month I think we will be able to send 
you a little money, for I know in that country 
one has to pay a great deal for trifling things; 
and I am sure you will not spend the money reck- 
lessly after your father has gone to so much trouble 
to obtain it. As for myself, the wants of women 
are few; I speak for him only. 

We talk of you every evening as we sit under 
the chestnut tree; we rarely ever spend a day that 
your name is not mentioned. 

The neighbors send you good wishes. 

My dear son, your father and I embrace you 
affectionately. May the good God protect you. 

Your mother, 

Francoise Peyral. 

When Jean received this letter he was 
in the prison of the barracks, where he 
was confined for drunkenness. 

Fortunately, the wound inflicted on the 
head of the blonde soldier had not proved 
serious, and neither the wounded man 
nor his comrades wished to denounce 
Jean. 

H is clothes were blood-stained, his shirt 


84 The Romance of a Spahi. 

in tatters, and in his head there were still 
the fumes of alcohol. A mist was before 
his eyes, and it was with difficulty that he 
read the letter. 

Between him and the pure affections of 
his childhood there was now a dark 
shadow ; this shadow was Cora — his pas- 
sion, his despair. He had some moments 
of oblivion, and then it was he could think 
with happiness of other days. 

The poor, confiding letter touched his 
heart ; he kissed it fervently, and began to 
weep. 

Then he swore he would never drink 
again; and as the habit had not yet a 
strong hold on him, it was easily broken. 

He never drank again. 


The Romance of a Spain . 


XX. 

Several days after this, an unforeseen 
circumstance brought a happy and salu- 
tary diversion into the life of Jean Peyral. 

An order was given for the spahis to 
establish themselves — men and horses — 
for a change of air in encampment at 
Dialambam, several miles south of Saint 
Louis, near the mouth of the river. 

On the day of their departure, Fatou- 
gaye came to the barracks, gaily attired 
in her bright blue holiday garment, to say 
farewell to Jean, and he embraced her, 
kissing her gently on her two little black 
cheeks. 

And at night-fall they started on the 
march. 

As for Cora, after the first moments of 
rage and excitement were over, she re- 


86 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

gretted her lovers, for in truth she had 
loved them both. The two Jeans ap- 
pealed equally to her senses ; treated as a 
divinity by Jean Peyral, and, on the other 
hand, by the officer as a pretty girl. 

But no one witnessed her mortification, 
for she was never again seen at Saint 
Louis strolling along the sands. One 
day she went away secretly — sent by her 
husband on an official errand to a factory 
far away, south of Saint Louis. 

Fatou-gaye had undoubtedly gossiped, 
and the last escapade of the woman Cora 
created at Saint Louis a profound sensa- 
tion. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 87 


XXI. 

One calm night toward the end of Feb- 
ruary — a real winter night, clear and cold, 
after a day of burning heat — the column 
of spahis, en route for Dialambam, crossed 
the plains of Legbar. 

They were straggling at their own 
pleasure, and Jean lingered in the rear, 
walking along tranquilly in company with 
his friend Nyaor-fall. 

The Sahara and the Soudan both have 
cold nights, which are even more brilliant 
and transparent than the winter nights in 
France. 

A deep silence rested on the whole 
country. The heavens, as blue as sap- 
phire, were profound and mysterious. 
Myriads of stars twinkled in the blue 
depths of the skies, and all objects were 


88 The Romance of a Spahi. 

defined with a wonderful accuracy in the 
silver moonlight. 

In the distance, as far as the eye could 
see, were great marshes covered with a 
dreary vegetation of mangroves. So it is 
in the whole country of Africa, from the 
left banks of the river Senegal to the 
inaccessible confines of Guinea. 

Sirius rose, the moon was in its zenith, 
and the silence was overwhelming. 

The great euphorbias lifted their 
branches heavenward, mingling their 
shadows with the shadows of the lesser 
plants on the ruddy sands. Scattered 
here and there were clumps of stunted 
trees and pools of stagnant water, over 
which floated thick, white vapors. The 
scene was full of mysterious immobility. 

The air was heavy with the odors from 
the great marshes, and at this hour of the 
night the miasma of fever is most subtle 
and fatal. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 89 

Everywhere along the route were scat- 
tered ghastly skeletons, the decaying bod- 
ies of camels bathed in a black and fetid 
blood, lying there in the moonlight, dis- 
playing their hideous, mangled carcasses, 
torn and disemboweled by the vultures. 

From time to time they heard the 
plaintive cry of the marsh-bird, the only 
sound amid an awful calm. 

On every side the baobabs stretched 
out their massive branches, like great 
bowlders or trees of stone. The moon 
shone on these rigid structures with a sad 
cheerlessness, giving them the appearance 
of objects cold and petrified. Whole 
families of vultures, were perched upon 
the polished branches, fast asleep, their 
large folded wings gleaming in the moon- 
light with a blue metallic luster. 

They permitted Jean to approach them 
and touch them as if they were be- 
witched. 


90 The Romance of a Spahi . 

At two o'clock there was a strange 
concert of voices, as of dogs baying the 
moon, but something more lugubrious 
and funereal. 

In Saint Louis, at the dead of night, 
Jean had often heard such groans in the 
distance ; but this evening it seemed they 
were there close to him in the bushes, the 
weird yelping of the jackal mingling with 
the sharp cry of the hyena. It was a 
combat between two roving bands in their 
raids on the bodies of the camels. 

“What is that?” demanded Jean of 
Nyaor. A horrible presentiment oppressed 
his heart, and a cold chill crept over him. 

“Those who are dead,” answered Nyaor, 
with an expressive wave of the hand. 
“ Those who die on land are sought out 
by these beasts and eaten by them.” 

And as he said “ eaten by them,” he 
gnawed his black arm with his shining 
white teeth. 


9 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

Jean comprehended and trembled ; and 
ever after that, each time he heard in the 
night those mournful, weird voices, he 
remembered this explanation, the graphic 
description of the mimicking Nyaor. 

And he, who in the daylight feared 
nothing, shuddered with the vague and 
gloomy fear of a superstitious mountaineer. 

At last the voices died away in the 
distance, now and then sounding faintly 
from some other point on the horizon, and 
then ceasing altogether. 

The milky vapor thickened over the still 
waters, the dew began to fall, and the 
damp air from the marshes was cold and 
penetrating. 

Dawn approached, the moon sunk be- 
hind the western horizon, and solitude op- 
pressed the heart. Finally there appeared 
low on the horizon the pointed roofs of 
the village of Dialambam, where to-mor- 
row the spahis would pitch their tents. 


9 2 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


XXII. 

Around the encampment of Dialam- 
bam were great marshes filled with stag- 
nant waters, and arid plains where the 
stunted mimosa grew in profusion. 

Jean often took long, solitary strolls 
with his gun upon his shoulder, hunting 
sometimes, and then again dreaming in 
the vague reveries of a mountaineer. 

And he also loved to take his canoe to 
ascend the yellow waters, losing himself 
in the mazes of the Senegal. 

In the wide marshes there were pools 
of warm and tranquil waters, sleeping there 
unruffled under the blazing sun. On their 
banks the soil was treacherous and inac- 
cessible to the foot of man. 

White aigrettes walked gravely in the 
depths of the monotonous verdure of the 


93 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

humid mangroves, and great, hissing 
lizards crawled in the mud. Water-lilies 
and white and red lotus-flowers bloomed 
there in the heat of the tropical sun, for 
the delight of the alligator. 

And Jean Peyral began to love this 
country. 




94 


The Romance of a Spahi . 


XXIII. 

The month of May arrived. 

The spahis began joyously to fold up 
their baggage and pull down their tents, 
collecting their possessions with energetic 
ardor. 

For they were about to return to Saint 
Louis, to the great white barracks, which 
had been repaired and repainted in their 
absence. They were going to resume 
their old pleasures — to find again their 
sweethearts and their absinthe. 

The month of May ! In France this is 
the beautiful month of verdure and of 
flowers, but in the sad country of Dialam- 
bam there is nothing suggestive of spring- 
time. The trees, herbs, and all vegeta- 
tion that does not grow in the muddy 
waters of the marshes are withered and 


The Romance of a Spahi. 95 

lifeless, for not a drop of water falls in 
this country for six months, and the soil 
is dry and parched. 

Then the temperature rises, the even- 
ing breezes cease; the winter season is 
over, and spring-time arrives with its sul- 
try heat and torrents of rain. This is the 
season of the year regarded with fear by 
the Europeans on the Senegal, because it 
brings lassitude, fever, and often death. 

It is necessary to live in this country of 
thirst to appreciate the indescribably de- 
licious sensation one feels at being wet to 
the skin by the large drops in the first 
wave of the storm in the first rain-fall. 

And the first tornado ! In the immobile, 
sombre sky there is a kind of leaden dome, 
and a strange signe du del rises above the 
horizon. The clouds assume fearful and 
fantastic forms, bringing to mind the 
eruption of a mighty volcano- — the explo- 
sion of a world. 


96 The Romance of a Spahi. 

Then they form themselves into grand 
arcs, rising one above the other; and then 
again the dark, heavy masses of clouds col- 
lect, resembling vaults of stone that seem 
about to fall on the world to crush it. 

Artists who paint the deluge, the cata- 
clysm of a primitive world, have not de- 
picted objects more grotesque, nor skies 
more terrible. 

Suddenly there bursts from the clouds 
a terrific rain-storm ; the trees are lashed 
as with whips ; the leaves, the birds and 
vultures are blown about in a furious 
gale. Everything in the path of the 
storm is overturned ; the tornado is un- 
chained ; nature is convulsed ; it is like 
the passage of a frightful meteor. 

The cataracts of heaven are poured 
down upon the earth, the wind blows a 
terrific gale, and the ground is covered 
with a debris of branches, birds, and 
flowers. 


97 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

But suddenly the fury of the storm is 
allayed; the last blasts of the gale chase 
from the skies the dull, copper-colored 
clouds, and sweep away the tattered rags 
of the tempest ; the meteor has passed, 
and the heavens become pure, blue, and 
immobile. 

The first tornado surprised the spahis 
en route to Saint Louis, and, breaking 
ranks, they soon became a noisy, joyous 
band, running toward the village of Tour- 
oukambe in great disorder. 

The women beating the millet, the chil- 
dren playing in the bushes, the pilfering 
fowls, the dogs sleeping in the sun, all ran 
to the huts precipitately, and crowded 
under the pointed roofs. 

These huts — already too small — were 
invaded by the spahis also, who walked 
right in, stumbling over the gourds, upset- 
ting the Kouss-Kouss. 

Their horses, haltered near by, rushed 

7 


98 The Romance of a Spahi. 

about frantically, neighing and pawing 
the ground with fright ; the dogs yelped; 
the goats, sheep, and all the domestic ani- 
mals of the village ran to the doors, bleat- 
ing, yelping, leaping, endeavoring to push 
their way in with their horns, claiming 
their share of shelter and protection. 

The cries, the screams, the bursts of 
negro laughter, the hissing noise of the 
tempestuous wind, and the thunder 
drowning all with its formidable artillery, 
made a wild, discordant tumult; a grand 
confusion under a black and raging sky ; 
darkness at midday, with only a rift of 
light now and then, from a flash of light- 
ning. 

When the tornado had passed, and 
order was restored, the spahis started 
forth on the beaten path, refreshed by the 
rain and the rest by the wayside. 

Soft, little clouds floated above them in 
the clear, blue heavens, curling and twist- 


99 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

ing like airy vapories, then fading away 
in the distant blue ether. 

Strong odors rose from the moistened 
earth; Nature was beginning her rejuve- 
nation. 


ioo The Romance of a Spahi. 


XXIV. 

Fatou-gaye lingered at the entrance of 
Saint Louis for many hours, that the ar- 
rival of the troops might not escape her. 

When she saw Jean pass, she saluted 
him with a discreet “ Keou” (good-day), 
accompanied by a graceful little courtesy, 
for she did not wish to disturb him in 
ranks. She had the good taste to wait 
two long hours before she went to see 
him at the barracks. 

She had changed greatly ; in three 
months she had developed suddenly, like 
the plants in her own country. 

She no longer demanded coppers, and 
she had acquired a certain graceful timid- 
ity so becoming to young girls. 

A bon-bon of white muslin now covered 
her shapely form, as was customary with 


The Romance of a Spa hi ’ ioi 

girls of a marriageable age, and she was 
highly perfumed with musk and soumere . 

Scattered over her head were innumer- 
able little tight curls, for she had permitted 
her hair to grow that she might go at an 
early day to a practiced hair-dresser, who 
would arrange it in the elaborate head- 
dress which always adorns the heads of 
African women. 

At present it was too short, so it lay 
in curled and disheveled masses, which 
changed her looks entirely, and from being 
comical and savage, she had become grace- 
ful and almost charming. 

In her tout-ensemble were blended the 
child, the young girl, and the black imp ; 
a very fantastic little person ! 

“ She is pretty, that little Fatou-gaye ; 
don’t you think so, Peyral?” laughingly 
remarked the spahis. 

Jean had discovered that she was pretty, 
but it mattered little to him. 


102 The Romance of a Spahi. 

The months of calm and reflection 
which he enjoyed during encampment 
had a most salubrious effect on him in 
every way. He had by degrees recovered 
his moral equilibrium, and the images of 
his old parents and his betrothed had 
regained all their honorable charm and 
former empire. 

He entirely abandoned his reckless 
habits, and he could not now understand 
how Dame Virginie Scolastique had ever 
counted him among her clients. 

Not only had he sworn never to drink 
absinthe, but also to remain faithful to 
Jeanne Mery. 


The Romance of a Spa h i. 


03 


XXV. 

When Jean took his twilight strolls he 
often encountered Fatou-gaye on the way, 
her hair, which had grown very quickly, 
standing out from her head like the wool 
on a black sheep. 

Formerly, during the first months of his 
life in Africa, he had regarded the black 
population with disgust. In his eyes they 
all had the appearance of monkeys, and 
beneath that oily, polished ebony he had 
never been able to recognize one from 
another. But after awhile he grew ac- 
customed to their faces, and he could 
distinguish them. When he saw the 
young black girls passing by, adorned 
with trinkets and silver bracelets he com- 
pared them, pronouncing this one pretty, 
that one ugly, this one graceful and 


104 Th e Romance of a Sfia/ii. 

charming, and that one savage; in fact, 
they were no longer repulsive to him. 

Jean often visited his friend Nyaor at 
Guet-n’dar, and the scenes of the interior 
of a Jaloff hut, of a life in common, 
troubled him greatly, and made him feel 
more keenly than ever his exile in that 
accursed land, where he was entirely iso- 
lated from his kind. 

He often dreamed of her whom he had 
loved with the chaste love of his boyhood 
— of J eanne Mery. Alas ! he had only been 
six months in Africa, and almost as many 
years must elapse ere he returned. 

He sometimes felt that he would not 
have the courage to live alone, with no 
companion to make the years of his exile 
endurable. 

There was Fatou-gaye, but what a prof- 
anation of himself ! He would then be 
no better than his comrades, the clients 
of old Virginie! 


The Romance of a Spahi. 105 

For he possessed a kind of dignity, an 
instinctive modesty which had preserved 
him from all corrupting influences, and his 
soul revolted at the thought of descend- 
ing so low. 


io6 The Romance of a Spahi. 


XXV I. 

He continued his long evening walks, 
though the heavy rains had begun to fall. 

The wide marshes were filled with fetid, 
stagnant waters, and a rank, herbaceous 
vegetation covered the face of the earth. 
Even the light of the sun was pale from 
excessive heat and deleterious exhalations, 
and fever and miasma were each day gain- 
ing on the land. 

Often at sunset, when Jean was alone 
amid these desolate scenes, his heart was 
oppressed with an unaccountable melan- 
choly ; there was something in the aspect 
of nature in that gloomy and abnormal 
country that paralyzed him. 

At the hour of twilight these African 
marshes have a sadness which can never 
be expressed in any human language. 

The eternal gloom of the land of Ham 
rests on all things. 


The Romance of a Spa hi 167 


XXVII. 

June is ever the ideal marriage month. 

Often, during these enervating even- 
ings, Jean would meet nuptial corteges 
filing their way across the yellow sands 
in long, fantastic processions. They all 
sang, and the chorus of voices — most of 
them in a fine, apish treble — was always 
accompanied by a contretemps — a beat- 
ing of hands and blows on the tam-tam. 

The songs at these negro celebrations 
were always suggestive of a gross and 
voluptuous sensuality. 

June ! It was indeed spring-time, but 
the spring-time of Africa, fleeting and 
feverish, with enervating odors and op- 
pressive storms. 

It was the return of butterflies, of 
birds, of life. Humming-birds doffed 
their robes of gray and resumed the gor- 


1 


1 68 The Romance of a Spahi. 

geous colors of summer ; all had become 
green, as if by enchantment; soft, warm 
shadows fell from the light foliage of the 
trees and herbs on the moist soil. 

The mimosa, flowering in profusion, 
resembled enormous bouquets ; birds flit- 
ted airily among the large tufts of orange 
blossoms, singing low, sweet notes. 

Even the clumsy baobab was reclothed 
in a fresh foliage of pale and tender 
green. 

The large, odorous blossoms of the 
datura, moistened by the light showers, 
yielded their sweetest perfumes, and from 
the tops of the plants fire-flies twinkled 
with phosphorescent scintillations. 

Nature was in great haste to rejuve- 
nate, and in eight days she had accom- 
plished it all. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 109 


XXVIII. 

“ Anamalis fobil ! ” howl the griots, 
fiercely striking the tam-tam, their eyes 
inflamed, muscles distended, and the 
sweat streaming down their distorted 
bodies. 

And they all repeat, clapping their 
hands in a. frenzy, '‘Anamalis fobil! 
Anamalis fobil ! ” 

These are the first words, the predomi- 
nant refrain, in that mad, devilish chant 
teeming with passion and voluptuousness 
— the chant of the spring-time bamboula. 

"Anamalis fobil!” they all cry in a 
frenzy of passion. 

It is the alleluia of negro love, the se- 
ductive song full of nature, of the air, the 
earth, the perfumes of flowers. 

At .the spring-time bamboula, the 


no The Romance of a Spahi. 

young boys and girls, attired with great 
splendor in their nuptial robes, mingle 
freely together, dancing on the sands, 
wildly singing in a mad rhythm, “ Ana- 
malis fobil ! ” 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


1 1 1 


XXIX. 

Anamalis fobil! The milk-white buds 
on the great baobabs had burst into a 
tender foliage. 

Jean felt the African spring-time burn- 
ing in his blood; it ran like poison through 
his veins. 

The sap that rose in the plants was 
empoisoned, the flowers were full of dan- 
gerous perfumes, the beasts were fierce, 
the reptiles venomous. 

The voluptuous delights of life in this 
new season of the year were new to him, 
and the fire of youth — for he was only 
twenty-two years old — burned within 
him, and he felt that it would consume 
him. 

Anamalis fobil ! how quickly time was 
flying ! June was almost gone, and al- 


I 12 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

ready in the vital heat the foliage was 
turning yellow, the plants were dying, and 
the over-ripe fruit was falling to the 
ground. 

Anamalis fobil ! There is a certain 
kind of bitter fruit in that hot country — 
the gourous of the Senegal, for instance — 
which in our temperate latitudes would 
be detestable, but which obtained there 
when one is suffering from thirst, is 
eagerly coveted and is strangely sweet. 
. . . And so this little black creature, 

with skin as smooth as marble, and her 
dark, enameled eyes already lowered be- 
neath the gaze of Jean — this savory fruit 
of the Soudan, mellowing prematurely in 
the sensuous, tropical spring-time — was 
full of intoxicating sweets, and untasted, 
unhealthy delights. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


13 


XXX. 

Anamalis fobil ! Jean with great haste, 
but a little abstractedly, was making his 
evening toilet. 

That morning he had requested Fatou- 
gaye to meet him at twilight beneath a 
certain great, isolated baobab in the 
marshes of Sorr. 

And now, before going, he leaned out 
of the window to collect his thoughts, if 
possible, while he breathed the fresh air 
of evening. 

He trembled at what he was about to 
do. For several days he had resisted the 
complicated feeling struggling within 
him, for, with the instinctive horror and 
dread of a superstitious mountaineer, he 
had a vague fear of those charms and 
amulets, lest their enchantment might 
hold him forever in a gloomy bondage. 


1 14 The Romance of a Spahi. 

He felt that he was about to step 
across the fatal threshold to sign. a fune- 
real compact with the black race, and 
that dark shadows were descending which 
would separate him forever from the be- 
loved ones so far away. 

A warm twilight fell along the river, 
the old white city gleamed for a moment 
in its rosy lights, and then the purple 
shadows deepened. Long files of camels 
took their way across the sands, going 
northward. Already the clash of the 
tam-tam could be heard in thb distance, 
and the griots singing in a frenzy, “An- 
amalis fobil ! Faramati hi ! ” 

The hour appointed for the meeting 
with Fatou-gaye had nearly passed, and 
Jean hastened to join her on the marshes 
of Sorr. 

Over these strange nuptials the lonely 
baobab threw its deepest shadows, and 
the heavens, which hung like a great yel- 


The Romance of a Spahi. 115 

low vault above them, were sad, motion- 
less, and oppressive, charged with elec- 
tricity, terrestrial emanations, and vital 
substances. 

To paint these nuptials, it would take 
colors so warm and glowing that no 
palette could furnish the like. 

It would take African words and 
sounds, and, above all that, silence ! It 
would take all the perfumes of the Sene- 
gal, its tempests and burning heats, its 
most transparent lights, its darkest shad- 
ows, and the great, solitary baobab in the 
depths of the marshes of Sorr ! 

Jean, though intoxicated with delight, 
felt a thrill of horror when he saw there 
so near to him the gleam of those brill- 
iant, enameled eyes. 

Bats flew noiselessly above them in a 
flight as soft and gentle as the flutter of a 
silken scarf. They approached very close 
to them ; their curiosity was excited, for 


1 1 6 The Romance of a Spahi. 

Fatou-gaye wore a robe of white which 
trailed on the rosy herbs. 

Anamalis fobil ! Faramati hi ! 


PART II. 


Three years have passed. . . . 

Three times have the terrible wind and 
spring returned ; three times the saison de 
la soif with its chilly nights and desert 
winds. 

Jean sleeps upon his tara in the airy 
upper apartment of the house of Samba- 
Hamet ; near him lies his wolf-dog, 
thirsty and motionless, tongue hanging 
out, and nose on its paws, in the attitude 
and with the expression of the sacred 
jackals in Egyptian temples. 

It is noon — the dreamy, silent hour of 
the siesta — and warm, warm, strangely 
warm, like the oppressive days of sultry 
July; yet it is a day in December, and 

the wind, blowing gently across the sands, 

cur) 


1 1 8 The Romance of a Spaht. 

gives them an undulating motion, as if 
there were thousands and thousands of 
minute waves upon the great mer-sanseau. 

Fatou-gaye, resting on her elbows, re- 
clines upon the floor, as nude as a statue 
(costume of the interior), her polished, 
black limbs lying in curves of exquisite 
grace. Her hair was arranged in a most 
extraordinary head-dress, adorned with 
amber and coral. 

All is silent around the house of Sam- 
ba-Hamet, save for an almost impercepti- 
ble rustling of flies and the slight noise of 
the sands which are blown in blinding 
gusts against the house. Jean has almost 
fallen asleep listening to the low, croon- 
ing songs of Fatou-gaye, who sang airs 
she had never heard, but which neverthe- 
less were not original. They were her 
own dreamy, passionate reveries, trans- 
lating themselves into musical sounds, 
strange and somnolent; a kind of reflex 


The Romance of a Spahi . 119 

action — an effect produced upon the brain 
by all the overwhelming force of circum- 
stances. 

Peace had been restored between Jean 
and Fatou-gaye ; Jean had forgiven, as 
he always did, and the affair of the Kha- 
liss and the ear-rings of the gold of Gal- 
lam were soon forgotten. 

Money was found elsewhere and sent 
to France. Nyaor-fall had loaned it to 
him in large, white pieces engraved with 
ancient effigies, which he had, with many 
others, hidden away in a copper box. Jean 
was to repay him when he was able. It 
was a grave responsibility for him, it is 
true, but his poor parents, who had 
counted upon him, were not disappointed; 
as for the rest, it mattered little. 

Asleep on his tara } with the little slave 
crouching at his feet, Jean had an inde- 
scribable air of superb indifference — the 
affected air of an Arabian prince — for he 


*120 The Romance of a Spa hi. 

possessed all the poor majesty of a fils de 
la tente; he was no longer the little mount- 
aineer of the Cevennes. 

The three years on the Senegal, which 
had mowed down here and there in the 
ranks of the spahis, had spared him. He 
was much bronzed from contact with the 
burning rays of the sun, but his strength 
had developed and his manners accentu- 
ated in all that was elegant and graceful. 
He had become a model soldier, punctual, 
vigilant, and brave, but the golden lace of 
a quarter-master was always refused him ; 
for many reasons, but principally because 
of his life with a black woman. 

Rioting, intoxication, being reported 
for assault, frequenting ale-houses, and 
otherwise debasing himself, was bad 
enough, but to live with a captive slave, 
even though she had been baptized, could 
not be forgiven him ; her color was unpar- 
donable. 


I 2 I 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

He had often received from his supe- 
riors violent remonstrances and terrible 
threats of punishment. Before the storm 
he showed a bold spirit, listening- with the 
stoicism of discipline, dissembling under 
an air of contrition ; he had even evinced 
a willingness to undergo the lash. But 
he still protected Fatou-gaye, and nothing 
more was ever done about it. 

His feelings for the little creature were 
complicated ; the most skillful would have 
lost his labor in trying to unravel it. 

He abandoned himself to her influence, 
and was powerless to separate himself 
from her ; following unresistingly the 
dictates of his troubled heart, for in those 
early days of separation and exile he was 
indecisive and easily decoyed. And day 
by day the shadows deepened over the 
memories of the past. 

Two years had passed since Jean and 
Fatou-gaye first inhabited the house of 


122 The Romance of a Spain . 

Samba-Hamet. In the house of Cora 
she had been a captive, not a slave, an 
essential distinction established by the 
laws of the colony, and of which she very 
soon took advantage. 

As a captive she had the right to escape, 
and they could not pursue her, and after 
she had fled, she was free. She had made 
use of the privilege. Moreover, she was 
baptized, which was another guarantee of 
liberty. Cunning as an ape, she turned 
it all over in her little head and com- 
prehended. 

For a woman who has not abjured the 
faith of Maghreb to give herself to a 
white man is an act of ignominy which 
is punished by the scorn and contempt of 
the public. 

For Fatou-gaye, however, this terrible 
prejudice no longer existed. It is true 
they called her Kafir , and she was excess- 
ively sensitive on this point. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 123 

The word Kafir (infidel) is the Roumi of 
the Algerians, the Giaour of the Orientals. 

There would frequently arrive from 
the interior, bands of Khassoukes, whom 
Fatou-gaye readily recognized at a dis- 
tance by their towering head-dress. She 
would run timidly and excitedly around 
them and endeavor to engage them in 
conversation in the beloved language of 
her native country; but they, after a word 
or two with the arch little creature, would 
turn their heads with scorn and laugh at 
her with an inexpressible curl of the lip. 

And Fatou-gaye would turn away with 
shame and a heavy heart. But, after all, 
there was nothing that gave her so much 
happiness as to be a Kafir and possess 
Jean. 


124 


The Romance op a Spa hi. 


II. 

Poor Jean slept deeply upon the light 
tara — the heavy, dreamless sleep of mid- 
day ; but the first moments of his awaken- 
ing were very sad and gloomy. 

That awakening after the deep trance of 
sleep at midday, the sudden realization of 
things after perfect oblivion, was terrible. 

At first his ideas were confused, discon- 
nected, and mysterious; but suddenly his 
mind became clear, painfully clear, and 
there arose before him from the depths 
of an irrevocable past the forms of his 
beloved ones in the cottage of the Ceven- 
nes, and he seemed to hear the faint tink- 
ling of the herd bells mingling with the 
shrill piping of the African grasshopper. 

Those sounds at midday in the feverish 
half-wakefulness of the siesta, those vague, 


125 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

unconscious thrills, brought tears to his 
eyes ; it was the result of circumstances, 
the paraphrase of silence and heat, of 
solitude and exile. 

He suffered once more the anguish of 
separation and lost happiness ; his whole 
life seemed wounded. Over all things 
hung the gloomy aspect of the tomb. 

He arose quickly, seized with a desire 
to go far away ; his heart was full of the 
rage of despair, and he thought of the 
dreary years that lay between him and his 
return. The feeble pulsations of the arter- 
ies in his forehead sounded to him like 
the beating of some great, mysterious 
clock of eternity, and he felt that his life 
was rolling away from him, and he was 
powerless to stop it. 

Fatou-gaye vaguely comprehended that 
this awakening was a dangerous moment, 
a critical time, when the white man was 
beside himself. She watched him as he 


126 The Romance of a Spahi. 

slept, and when she saw him open his great, 
melancholy eyes full of a wild despair, 
she approached him humbly to do his 
bidding. Entwining her supple arms 
about him, she would look into his eyes 
questioningly, and say, in a voice as soft 
and languishing as the notes of a griot's 
guitar: ‘‘What is it, my white man?” 
And so these gloomy impressions of Jean 
were not of long duration ; and when he 
was wide awake, his habitual insensibility 
resumed its sway, and he saw things in 
their accustomed light. 


The Romance o_f a Spain. 


127 


III. 

Fatou-gaye’s hair-dressing was a very 
important and complicated performance, 
occurring once a week, and often occupy- 
ing a whole day. 

In the morning she walked to the negro 
village, Guet-n’dar, where, in a hut of 
reeds and straw, there dwelt a hair-dresser 
of great renown among the Nubian 
women. 

She would remain there for hours sit- 
ting on the sands before the door, giving 
herself up entirely to the hands of the 
patient and careful artist. 

He unplaited her hair at once, taking 
off, one by one, the jewels, and after 
combing out the thick tresses he began to 
reconstruct the wonderful edifice, adorn- 
ing it with coral, bands of gold, spangles 


128 The Romance of a Spahi . 

of copper, and balls of amber and em- 
erald. 

The amber balls were as large as apples, 
and were precious heir-looms inherited 
by Fatou-gaye from her mother. She had 
brought them from the far-off Gallam into 
the land of her captivity, concealed in a 
casket 

The most difficult part to arrange of this 
wonderful coiffure were the curled masses 
just above the nape of the neck, for there 
it was necessary to comb out the innu- 
merable little kinks, which would then 
resemble a thick black fringe. 

Then with deft and nimble fingers the 
hair-dresser would roll each of these 
locks separately around a straw, and paste 
them there with gum, which held the 
straws permanently in their places. 

In the evening Fatou-gaye would re- 
turn home with her hair supported on 
these straws, which had the appearance 
of the quills upon a porcupine. In the 


The Romance of a Spahi . 129 

morning, however, when the straws were 
removed, the effect was startling and 
beautiful. 

She enveloped it all in a blue trans- 
parent gauze, as light and airy as a cob- 
web — -a fashion peculiar to the Khassouke 
women — and this coiffure would last, night 
and day, for a whole week. 

She wore elegant sandals of leather, 
tied on with flaxen strings passed between 
the great and little toes, after the manner 
of the buskins of the ancients, and a gar- 
ment similar to those worn by the Egyp- 
tian women of the time of Pharaoh, 
which they bequeathed to the Nubian 
women. 

Across her bosom was thrown a bon-bon , 
a large square of muslin with an opening 
through which the head is passed, and 
which reaches almost to the knees. 

Her ornaments were heavy rings of 
silver riveted to her wrists and ankles, 


130 The Romance of a Spahi ' 

and necklaces redolent with the odor of 
soumere. 

The soumere is a kind of berry which 
matures on the banks of the Gambia. 
It has a pungent, penetrating odor, a per- 
fume sui generis , characteristic of the 
Senegal. These berries are woven into 
iiecklaces, and are the favorite adornment 
of the African women. 

Fatou-gaye was very beautiful with this 
high, fantastic head-dress, which gave to 
her the air of a Hindoo divinity arrayed 
for a religious festival. She did not have 
the flat nose and thick lips that we gen- 
erally regard as the common type of the 
negro race; but she possessed the pure 
Khassouke type of beauty — a straight, 
delicate nose, with nostrils thin and flexi- 
ble, a perfect mouth, glittering white 
teeth, and, above all, large dark eyes 
encircled with blue, which sometimes were 
full of a strange gravity, and then again 
with mysterious malice. 


The Romance of a Spahi . 


131 


IV. 

Fatou-gaye was very indolent ; it was 
truly an odalisque that Jean was wor- 
shiping. 

She knew how to repair her scanty gar- 
ments, and she always looked as neat and 
dainty as a little black cat when she ar- 
rayed herself in her snowy-white clothes; 
but beyond the care of her person, she 
was incapable of labor. 

The poor Peyrals could no longer send 
to their son their small savings, for noth- 
ing succeeded with them any more, as the 
old mother had written, and since they 
were obliged to have resource to the mod- 
est purse of Jean; Fatou-gayes income 
was more slender than ever. But hap- 
pily she was a person of very frugal hab- 
its, and her wants were few. 


132 The Romance of a Spahi. 

Everywhere in the Soudan the woman 
is placed in strong contrast with the man, 
in the most degrading conditions of infe- 
riority. Many times during her life she is 
sold as a beast of burden, at a price de- 
pending entirely on her looks — her ugli- 
ness, defects, and old age. 

One day Jean demanded of his friend 
Nyaor : 

“ What have you done with your wife 
Nokhoudounkhuille, the one that is so 
beautiful ? ” 

And Nyaor replied, with a tranquil 
smile : 

“ Nokhoudounkhuille talked too much, 
and I sold her ; with the money they 
gave me for her I bought two sheep that 
never speak.” 

The women labor hard beating the mil- 
let for the Kouss-Kouss; from morning till 
night in all Nubia, from Timbuctoo to 
the coast of Guinea, in every hut under 


33 


The Romance of a Spa hi. i 

the burning sun is heard the sound of the 
pestles falling noisily in the mortars of 
stone. 

Thousands of arms encircled with glit- 
tering bracelets grow weary and exhaust- 
ed at this labor. This monotonous sound, 
mingled with the sharp, querulous voices 
of the women, who chatter away like 
monkeys, is the characteristic tumult that 
afar in the desert announces the approach 
to an African village. 

The product of this eternal beating, 
which has been done by generations of 
women, is a coarse meal of millet, from 
which they make an unsavory liquor 
called Kouss-Kouss. This Kouss-Kouss 
is the chief food of the black people. 

Fatou-gaye escaped the legendary la- 
bor of the women of her race, but each 
evening she descended to the lodgings of 
Coura-n’diaye, the ancient poetess of El 
Hadj, the female griot, and there, after 


/ 


134 7 'he Romance of a Spahi. 

paying her feeble monthly allowance, she 
had the right to sit among the slaves of 
the old favorite, around a large gourd 
smoking with Kouss-Kouss , to satisfy the 
greedy appetite of a sixteen-year-old girl. 

Extended upon a tara of finely woven 
mats, old Coura-n’diaye presided with an 
inexpressible dignity. 

The scenes at these repasts were inde- 
scribably noisy. The little black slaves, 
crouching on the ground around the 
gourd, leaned over the crude liquor and 
ate it with their fingers, occasionally 
bursting into peals of merry laughter, dis- 
playing their white teeth set in gums as 
red as a peony. The stealthy paws of 
cats, the noses of the yellow dogs and the 
big-horned sheep were also thrust into 
the gourd for their share of the Kouss- 
Kouss . 


The Romance of a Spahi. 135 


V. 

The deserted square before the house 
of Samba-Hamet was always very sad 
and lqnely at twilight. Jean often re- 
mained for hours leaning out of the win- 
dow at that time, when all was silent save 
the rustling of the parchments of the 
priests suspended from the ceiling, as they 
fluttered about in the evening breeze. 
Fatou-gaye had hung them there to guard 
them while they slept. 

This evening he sat in the door-way 
smoking cigarettes, which he had taught 
Fatou-gaye to make, watching with his 
great, languid, brown eyes the little 
negresses who had come to play in the 
dim, weird twilight on the deserted square, 
where they flitted about like moths in the 
evening breeze. 


136 The Romance of a Spahi . 

The sunsets in December invariably 
bring to Saint Louis refreshing breezes, 
while overhead the clouds hang like dark 
curtains, growing darker and darker 
toward night-fall ; but never a drop of 
rain falls, for this is the dry season, and 
there is no moisture anywhere.^ This 
respite at twilight always gives one a 
sensation of physical solace, yet it also 
brings with it a feeling of intense sadness 
and melancholy. 

As Jean sat there before his lonely 
door he was lost in a deep reverie — his 
thoughts were very far away. Every day 
at the barracks he took a journey, as the 
flight of a bird, over the great geograph- 
ical charts, and as he sat there he traveled 
it again in spirit. 

He first traversed the gloomy desert; 
and this part of his journey, through 
those infinite, mysterious solitudes where 
the burning heat and all the sands re- 


The Romance of a Spahi. 137 

tarded his footsteps, he accomplished but 
slowly. 

Then he crossed Algeria and the Med- 
iterranean, and reaching the coast of 
France, he ascended the Rhone. Finally 
he came to the little black marks on the 
map that represented to him lofty pinna- 
cles in the clouds — the Cevennes. 

Mountains ! It had been so long since 
his eyes had rested on anything but the 
low, sombre plains, so long since he had 
seen mountains, that he had almost for- 
gotten their aspect. 

And forests ! The grand forests of oak 
trees in his own country, so cool and 
shadowy, where flowed rivers of spark- 
ling waters, and whose soil was covered 
with a carpet of green mosses and wild 
flowers! What a relief it would be to 
him if he could behold that moist, green 
earth, instead of the arid sands swept by 
the desert winds! 


1 38 The Romance of a Spahi. 

And he saw in this ideal voyage the 
dear village, the old church, upon which 
he imagined there was snow, and his cot- 
tage near by, and he seemed to hear the 
ancient bell sounding the Angelus. 

He saw it all as in a vision in the blue 
vapors of the cool December twilight, 
and the familiar faces of his loved ones 
shone on him tender and beautiful as he 
viewed them in the rosy lights of mem- 
ory. Was it possible that they existed in 
reality, and were not even so far away 
but that he might reach them in a few 
days ? 

What were they doing then, his old 
parents, at this hour when he was think- 
ing of them so intensely ? Seated by the 
fireside, no doubt, near the wide chimney, 
where blazed a cheerful fire made of the 
dry branches collected in the forests. He 
could see there each familiar object of 
his childhood : the little lamp for winter 


*39 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

evenings, the old furniture, the cat doz- 
ing on a stool, and in the midst of it all 
the beloved tenants of the cottage. 

It was seven o’clock ; the evening meal 
was finished ; his old father sat in his 
habitual attitude, his head supported on 
his hand — the head of an old cuirassier 
who had become a mountaineer. And 
his mother: she was knitting, perhaps, the 
long needles flying in and out of her 
active fingers, or holding the distaff, spin- 
ning flax. And Jeanne Mery, she was 
with them probably ; his mother had writ- 
ten him that she often came to keep 
them company winter evenings. She was 
“changed,' but more beautiful than ever,” 
they had written him, for she had blos- 
somed like a flower into lovely woman- 
hood — no longer the little Jeanne he 
once knew. 

Night had fallen over the lonely square, 
but the little negresses still flitted about 


140 The Romance of a Spa hi, 

in the growing darkness, the fluttering 
folds of their flowing garments resembling 
the outstretched wings of bats as they ran 
about in the cool breeze with the sportive 
movements of little kittens gamboling 
when the wind is dry and frost is in the 
air. 

The moon rose and made a vivid pict- 
ure of the spahi in his gay red uniform ; 
and Fatou-gaye, who sat near him, her 
towering head-dress glittering with amber 
and gold, her great eyes full of a dreamy 
melancholy, was a bit of color that made 
the picture perfect. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


141 


VI. 

A PEDANTIC DIGRESSION ON MUSIC AND 
THAT CLASS OF PEOPLE CALLED 
GRIOTS. 

The art of music in the Soudan is con- 
fined to a peculiar caste of men called 
griots , who are from father to son itiner- 
ant musicians and composers of heroic 
songs. 

These griots beat the tam-tam at the 
bamboula, and on festive occasions sing 
the praises of persons of rank. 

When a chief desires to hear his own 
name exalted he commands the griots, who 
come and sit before him on the sands 
and improvise in his honor a long series 
of official couplets, accompanying their 
sharp voices with the notes of a primitive 
little guitar whose strings are stretched 
over the skin of a serpent. 


142 The Romance of a Spaht . 

The griots are the most philosophical 
and idle of people, leading wandering lives 
and taking no thought of the morrow. 

They roam from village to village, or 
follow in the suite of the grand chiefs 
who go to battle ; here and there receiv- 
ing alms, and treated everywhere as pari- 
ahs, like the European gypsy. 

Sometimes they are loaded with gold and 
favors, and then again in other countries 
they are excluded during their lives from 
all religious ceremonies, and at their death 
from the rights of sepulture. 

They compose plaintive romances with 
vague, mysterious words ; heroic songs that 
are melodious even in their monotony ; 
marches for the warriors, in a nervous, 
stately rhythm, and airs for the dance 
which bring to mind the frenzied ravings 
of enraged beasts. 

But there is a peculiar melody in all 
the music of the blacks, as with all primi- 


The Romance of a Spahi. 143 

tive people, which is expressed in short, 
sad phrases with a gamut, more or less 
accidental ; rising at one moment to the 
highest notes of the human voice, then 
descending suddenly to the lowest, drag- 
ging itself along in a kind of lamenta- 
tion. 

The negresses always sing at their 
work during the warm, drowsy hours of 
the siesta. 

In the great calm of midday, so ener- 
vating there on the banks of the Senegal, 
the plaintive songs of the Nubian women 
have a strange charm. Transported from 
this exotic frame-work of sun and sand, 
they would no longer possess the same 
thrilling pathos. 

Although these negro melodies seem 
primitive on account of their repetitions 
and unceasing monotony, they are really 
very often difficult and complicated. 

The marriage processions which one 


144 The Romance of a Spahi. 

so often meets winding slowly over the 
sands always sing under the guidance of 
the griots, their strange chorus being in- 
variably accompanied by a persistent con- 
tretemps, bristling with fantastic difficul- 
ties. 

A simple instrument, reserved for wo- 
men, plays an important part in the 
music of these assemblages. It is only 
a gourd flattened at one end, which is 
struck with the hand, sometimes at the 
opening, and then again on the side, pro- 
ducing two very different sounds — the 
one dry and ‘sharp, the other dull and 
muffled. It is so difficult to draw any 
sound from this instrument that the result 
obtained is surprising. The effect of the 
distant voices of the negroes mingling, 
half-drowned by the noise of hundreds 
of these instruments, is strange, and 
weird. 

The perpetual contretemps of the ac- 


i45 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

companiment, the unexpected pauses, per- 
fectly understood and observed by all the 
performers, are the most noticeable char- 
acteristics of this music, inferior perhaps, 
but very different from ours. 


10 


146 The Romance of a Spahi. 


VII. 

A passing griot strikes the tam-tam ; 
it is a summons, and they all gather around 
him, the women arranging themselves in 
a circle, singing sensual and passionate 
songs. 

The one who arrives first leads the 
throng, and darting into the middle of 
the circle, dances to the music of the tam- 
bour — very slowly at first, with licentious 
gestures, then faster and faster, until she 
reaches a frenzy. As she moves her body 
there is a noisy clashing and jingling of 
glass beads and trinkets, and her move- 
ments resemble the friskings of a foolish 
ape or the contortions of one possessed. 

When completely exhausted she retires, 
panting and overcome, the slimy drops 
of sweat bathing her black skin. 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 147 

Her companions gather around her 
with whoops of applause ; then another 
woman takes her place within the circle, 
and each one successively until they have 
all had their turn. 

The older women are even more con- 
spicuously and outrageously indecent. The 
infants, which they often carry on their 
backs, being frightfully tossed about, raise 
their voices in piercing cries ; but the 
negresses on such occasions seem lost to 
all maternal sentiments, and nothing can 
induce them to pause in their mad dance. 

On the Senegal the time of full moon 
is particularly consecrated to the bam- 
boula and other great fetes of the negroes. 
In that country of endless sands it seems 
that the moon attains a greater size than 
elsewhere, and its light is more brilliant 
and ruddy. 

The crowd begins to gather at the close 
of day; the women are attired in gorgeous 


148 The Romance of a Spahi. 

colors and bedecked with jewels and the 
fine gold of Gallam. Their arms are orna- 
mented with heavy silver rings, and around 
their necks is a wonderful profusion of 
trinkets, amber, coral, and glass beads. 

When the red disk of the moon appears 
above the horizon, shedding its bloody 
lights upon the sands, the furious tumult 
begins. 

At certain seasons of the year the lonely 
square before the house of Samba-Hamet 
becomes the theatre of these weird bam- 
boulas. 

On these occasions Coura-n’diaye would 
lend Fatou some of her precious jewels 
that she might attend the fete , and some- 
times she herself would appear, as in 
olden times. Then there was a great 
buzz of admiration as the old griot 
advanced, glittering with gold and jewels, 
her head thrown back and a strange light 
shining in her aged eyes. 


49 


The Romance of a Spa h i. 

With a brazen face she would appear 
as nude, as a statue, though her body 
was as tough and wrinkled as a black 
mummy. 

She would then display the marvel- 
ous gifts of El Hadj, the Conqueror. 
There were necklaces of emerald of the 
purest water, rows upon rows of golden 
bells of inimitable workmanship; there 
was pure gold on her arms and ankles, 
and her head was adorned with exquisite 
ornaments of antique gold. 

Then the old, bedizened idol would 
begin to sing, and becoming more and 
more excited each moment, she wildly 
tossed about her skeleton arms, though it 
was with difficulty she lifted the weight, 
of her heavy bracelets. Her harsh and 
cavernous voice resounded as from an 
empty carcass, then sank into a groan 
— a posthumous echo of the poetess of 
El Hadj. In her bright, dilated eyes one 


150 The Romance of a Spahi. 

seemed to see a reflection of the great, mys- 
terious wars of the interior of former 
days — the armies of El Hadj flying 
through the desert — horrible massacres, 
where whole tribes were left to the vult- 
ures — the siege of Segou-Koro, and the 
villages of Messina, Medina, and Timbuc- 
too all burning under the blazing sun like 
a fire of herbs on the plains. 

Coura-n’diaye would be entirely over- 
come with exhaustion when she had fin- 
ished her songs, and on returning to her 
house she would throw herself, panting 
and trembling, upon her tara, and after 
her little slaves had taken off her jewels 
.and arranged everything to make her 
comfortable, she would remain there, silent 
and motionless, for many hours. 


The Romance of a Spahi . 


15 r 


VIII. 

One morning Fatou-gaye conducted 
Jean out of Saint Louis in the direction of 
Guet-n’dar, leading him, after the fashion 
of negroes, by one finger held in her little 
black hand covered with silver rings. 

Guet-n’dar is a negro village built upon 
the sands, and is composed of thousands 
of small, round huts with pointed roofs of 
stubble, many of which assume the most 
extraordinary shapes. 

Some of them are tall and peaked, 
menacing the skies; others are horizon- 
tal, threatening their neighbors, and many 
of them have a parched and shriveled 
look, as if they were suffering from the 
drought and were about to roll themselves 
up like the trunk of an elephant. 

Under the uniformity of the blue sky 


152 The Romance of a Spahi. 

these hundreds of peaks and points give 
one an impression of many horned objects. 

Guet-n’dar is divided by a wide street 
of sand running from north to south, very 
straight and regular, opening afar in the 
great desert — the desert that forms both 
country and horizon. 

On either side of this vast, sandy way 
are numbers of narrow streets turning in 
and out as tortuously as the paths in a 
labyrinth. 

It was in the month of January, and 
seven o’clock in the morning ; the sun 
was just rising, and at this hour the 
air is fresh and agreeable even on the 
Senegal. 

Jean walked along with a firm and 
steady step, smiling inwardly at the droll 
expedition upon which he was allowing 
Fatou-gaye to take him, and at the 
thought of the personage they were about 
to visit. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 153 

He permitted himself to be led along 
with a good grace, for he was amused 
and interested. 

He was very handsome this morning, 
for the rare freshness of the pure air had 
brought out all of his physical elasticity, 
and had upon him a most exhilarating 
effect. 

Fatou-gaye appeared to him in a most 
favorable light, and he almost loved her. 

It was one of those singular, fugitive 
moments when memory was dead and the 
land of Africa seemed to smile upon him ; 
when he abandoned himself without a 
retrospective glance to the life which for 
more than three years had lulled him into 
a dangerous sleep haunted with prophetic 
dreams. 

Behind the reedy palisades that bor- 
dered the streets of Guet-n’dar could be 
heard the sonorous blows of the pestles 
beating the millet for the Kouss-Kouss. 


154 7 'he Romance of a Spahi. 

mingled with bursts of negro voices and 
the rattling of their glass beads and 
trinkets. , 

At every street corner were skulls of 
great horned sheep attached to the end of 
long wooden poles, and skimming about 
everywhere were fetich lizards w^ith sky- 
blue bodies and heads of a beautiful orange 
color which were swinging about perpetu- 
ally from side to side. 

The air was full of the strong odors of 
negroes, leather amulets, Kouss-Kouss and 
sottmere. 

Little negresses appeared at the gates 
with strings of blue pearls around their 
necks and their pear-shaped heads covered 
with coquettish little kinks; their mouths 
were stretched from ear to ear with smiles, 
and craning their .necks over the gates 
they regarded Jean with curiosity and 
astonishment, chattering away in an in- 
comprehensible jargon. 


55 


The Romance of a Spahi . i 

These scenes forcibly reminded Jean 
that he was in a land of exile ; yet there 
was a certain charm about it all, and the 
rising of the tropical sun, the limpid 
morning air with its animating inspira- 
tion had a magical effect on the young 
soldier. He responded gaily to the salu- 
tations of the little negresses, smiled upon 
Fatou-gaye, and for the moment the past 
sank into oblivion. 

They finally arrived at the hut of an 
old black man with a sharp and cunning 
look in his eye, named Samba-Latir. 
When they were seated upon mats on the 
ground in the house of their host, Fatou- 
gaye began the conversation, explaining 
the situation, which was, as will be seen, 
of a very grave and critical nature. 

For several days, always at the same > 
hour, she had met a certain ugly old woman, 
who regarded her in a very singular man- 
ner out of the corner of her eye, over her 
shoulder. 


156 The Romance of a Spahi. 

Yesterday, Fatou-gaye had returned 
home in tears, declaring to Jean that she 
was bewitched, and that night she was 
obliged to bathe her head in cold water 
to diminish the first effects of the evil 
eye. 

In her collection of amulets there were 
those against all sorts of accidents, pains, 
bad dreams, poisonous plants, dangerous 
falls, and venomous reptiles ; against the 
infidelity of Jean, the devastations of 
white ants, and alligators ; but there was 
not a single one to ward off the bad luck 
which certain people have the power to 
throw over those who pass them — not an 
amulet to drive away the baleful effects 
of the evil eye ! 

And this was a recognized specialty of 
Samba-Latir, who had the charm already 
prepared. 

With a mysterious air he took from an 
old chest a small red bag attached to a 


i57 


The Romance of a Spaki. 

leather string, and placed it around Fatou- 
gaye’s neck, at the same time pronouncing 
cabalistic words to conjure the malignant 
spirit. 

This only cost ten francs, and Jean, who 
did not know how to bargain even for an 
amulet, paid it without murmuring. But 
he felt the blood mounting to his temples 
when he saw his money go that way, for 
he thought with a pang of remorse of his 
old parents, who deprived themselves of 
many things that were certainly of more 
value than the amulets of Fatou-gaye. 


158 The Romance of a Spahi . 


IX. 

LETTER FROM JEANNE MERY TO HER COUSIN 
JEAN. 

My Dear Jean: Almost three years have passed 
since your departure, and I am always looking for 
you to say something about your return home. 
I have great faith in your remaining faithful to 
me, yet I can not deny that there are times in 
the lonely hours of the night when regret seizes 
me and my heart is full of fear. 

My parents say that if you had very much de- 
sired it, you might have obtained a permit to pay 
us a visit. 

It is true our cousin Pierre returned twice to 
this country during the time he served as a 
soldier. 

They say that I am going to marry that big 
Suirot, but you must not believe it, for you know 
I could never marry that great simpleton. They 
may talk, but I know there is no one in the whole 
world so dear to me as my dear Jean. 

They also say that I am putting on airs because 


159 


The Romance of a Spahi ’ 

I will not dance with that numbskull Toinon, and 
others like him, but it is not true. I sit quietly 
on the bench before the door, with Rose, and think 
of you, whom I love more than all the rest. 

Thank you for the picture, which is very good, 
though they tell me you are greatly changed; it 
is like you, though somehow you have not the 
same expression. 

I hung it above the chimney among my Easter 
boughs, so it is the first thing that greets my eyes 
when I enter my chamber. 

I have not yet dared to wear the bracelet you 
sent me that was made by the black people, for I 
am afraid that Rose and Olivette may ridicule me. 
They already think that I affect the airs of a fine 
lady. When you return, and we are married, it 
will be different; I will then wear it openly, with 
the beautiful chain and scissor-case of my aunt 
Toinette. 

Only come, for you see that I am longing for a 
sight of you. I have the appearance of being 
happy, but sometimes regret and disappointment 
rise in my heart so strong that I go to my own 
room and weep. 

Adieu, my dear Jean. I embrace you with all 
my heart. Jeanne M£ry. 


160 The Roma?tce of a Spahi. 


X. 

Fatou-gaye’s hands, which were a beau- 
tiful glossy black outside, were pink inside. 
For a long time Jean shuddered whenever 
he caught a glimpse of that inside color, 
and a cold chill crept over him as if he 
had touched the feet of an ape. 

Her hands, nevertheless, were small 
and delicate, and attached to round and 
very slender wrists ; but those fingers of 
two different colors had something about 
them that was not human, which to Jean 
was horrible. 

And there would escape her sometimes, 
when she was very animated, certain in- 
tonations in a strange treble, and peculiar 
gestures, which recalled mysterious re- 
semblances and troubled his imagination. 

But after awhile he grew accustomed to 


The Romance of a Spahi. 1 6 1 

them, and no longer allowed these pecu- 
liarities to annoy him, and at times when 
Fatou-gaye was gentle and amiable he 
loved her, though he often laughingly 
called her by an odd Jaloff name that 
means “little monkey.” 

This nickname mortified Fatou greatly, 
and Jean was much amused at the seri- 
ous and imposing airs she assumed. 

One fine day Fritz Muller paid a visit 
to Jean, and mounting noiselessly to the 
threshold, he paused a moment to watch 
the following scene : Jean, who was laugh- 
ing like a boy, held Fatou-gaye by the 
arm, and turning her around, at the same 
time gazing intently at her, he seemed to 
be closely inspecting her. Suddenly, with 
an air of conviction, he thus expressed 
his conclusions: 

“Yes, Fatou, you are a perfect little 
monkey ! ” 

And she, greatly vexed, replied : 

1 1 


1 62 The Romance of a Spahi. 

“ Oh, T’ Jean, T’ Jean ! you ought not 
to say so ; for in the first place the mon- 
key knows not how to speak, and I know 
very well.” 

Then Fritz Muller laughed aloud, and 
Jean joined him; but Fatou-gaye assumed 
an air of offended dignity, as if to pro- 
test by her deportment against these impo- 
lite criticisms. 

“A very pretty little monkey, anyhow,” 
said Muller, who greatly admired Fatou- 
gaye. He had lived in the black country 
a long time, and recognized in her one 
of the most attractive of the beautiful 
daughters of the Soudan. '‘A very 
pretty little monkey ! If all the mon- 
keys in the woods of Gallam were like 
her, one could have become acclimated 
in that accursed, God-forsaken country.” 


The Romance of a Spahi . 


163 


XI. 

A noisy crowd of men in the uniform of 
the spahis were assembled one evening in 
a large hall. 

The windows were thrown open to 
catch the evening breeze ; swarms of fire- 
flies, attracted by the dazzling light, came 
to beat their wings against the great, 
swinging chandeliers. 

Scattered about in the crowd were ne- 
gresses and mulattresses, who were there 
to serve the spahis, for it was a grand 
banquet. 

That day there had been a fete at Saint 
Louis — a military fete — a review of the 
troops at the barracks, horse-races on the 
desert, canoe-races on the river ; in fact, 
the usual programme of merriment and 
rejoicing of a provincial town. In addi- 


164 The Romance of a Spahi. 

tion to which, the musicians had been 
brought from Nubia. 

All the handsome, robust men of the 
garrison — spahis, sailors, and sharpshoot- 
ers — were promenading the streets. 

There were also mulatto men and 
women in holiday attire — old Signardes du 
Senegal , grave and dignified, their high 
coiffures of Madras silk handkerchiefs 
arranged in the fashion of 1820, and 
young Signardes in more modern toilettes, 
much faded and wrinkled, and smelling 
of the coast of Africa ; then there were 
other females in fresh, fashionable cos- 
tumes; and behind them, as if for an off- 
set, were crowds of little negroes bedecked 
with beads and savage ornaments. 

It was a day of wonderful animation 
for Saint Louis, and all the inhabitants 
of the old city thronged the usually de- 
serted streets, ready to return to-morrow 
to the gloom of the silent houses under 
their uniform shroud of white lime. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 165 

The spahis, who by order had paraded 
all day on the Government square, were 
joyous and excited at the unusual exer- 
cise and movement. That evening they 
would receive their promotions and the 
medals that had arrived by the last mail 
from France. 

Jean usually sat apart from his compan- 
ions, but this evening he joined them 
around the festal board. 

A number of toasts were drunk. Many 
songs were sung ; songs brought from 
Algeria, India, and elsewhere; some as 
solos, discreet and comical, and others 
in a fearful chorus, accompanied by the 
breaking of glasses and blows of the 
hands on the table. They also repeated 
anecdotes and threadbare jokes, and 
above the uproar could be heard words 
to make the devil blush. 

Then suddenly, amid the surging tu- 
mult, a spahi raised his glass, and pro- 
posed this unexpected toast : 


1 66 The Romance of a Spahi. 

“ To those who fell at Mecca and Bob- 
diarah ! ” 

How strange, how unforeseen ! An 
homage, a sacrilegious pleasantry, in 
memory of those long dead ! 

He was very drunk, the spahi who had 
proposed the funereal toast, and his eyes 
were dull and gloomy. 

Alas, in a few years who will give a 
thought to “ those who fell at Mecca and 
Bobdiarah,” whose bones are already 
bleaching on the desert sands ! 

The people at Saint Louis who saw 
them depart may retain a memory of 
their names for a little while; but after a 
few years, who will remember them, who 
will speak of them ? 

And every glass was emptied in mem- 
ory of “those who fell at Mecca and 
Bobdiarah.” 

This strange toast was followed by a 
great silence of awe and astonishment, 




The Romance of a Spahi. 167 

and it seemed as if a black pall had fallen 
upon the joyous feast of the spahis. 

Jean particularly, whose eyes had been 
flashing with merriment, and whose ring- 
ing peals of laughter had been heard 
above the others, became grave and 
thoughtful, powerless to explain where- 
fore. 

“To those who fell on the desert!” 
somehow those words thrilled him with 
horror, and a tremor ran through his flesh 
as when he heard the voices of the jack- 
als borne to him on the wind from the 
gloomy plains of Sorr. 

Notwithstanding, he was very brave, 
and had no fear of battle; and when he 
heard of Boubakar-Segou, who was then 
roaming about with his army near the 
gates of Saint Louis, he felt his heart 
bound at the thought of seeing a battle, 
even if it was only against a negro king. 
He felt that it would awaken him from 


1 68 The Romance of a Spahi. 

the life of dreamy idleness in the old 
white house, under the charm of a dusky 
child of the Khassoukes. 

Poor fellows! You who drink to the 
memory of the dead; who laugh, who 
sing, profit by the joyous passing mo- 
ment ! Yet those gay, reckless songs 
have a mournful sound in the land of the 
Senegal, where many of you, beyond a 
doubt, have your graves already marked 
on the desert sands. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 169 


XII. 

In Gallam ! Who can comprehend 
what mysterious echoes these words 
awaken in the heart of the negro exile ? 

When Jean demanded of Fatou-gaye, 
long ago in the house of Cora: 

“Where was your home, little one?” 
she responded in tremulous tones: 

“ In the land of Gallam.” 

Poor negroes of the Soudan — exiled, 
driven from their native villages by all 
the devastations of these primitive coun- 
tries ; by great wars and great famines ; 
sold into captivity, sometimes going on 
foot before the lash of a master, over a 
country more extensive than Europe ! 
Still the memory of their native land is 
ineffaceably written in the -depths of their 
faithful hearts. 


170 The Romance of a Spahi. 

Where formerly could be seen, in the 
far distant Timbuctoo, the grand palaces 
of white clay of Segou-Koro, mirrored in 
the bright waters of the Niger, or where 
the simple, straw-thatched villages lifted 
their pointed roofs in the heart of the 
desert, or in some deep defile of the 
mountains of the South, there the pas- 
sage of the conqueror has left but a 
heap of ashes — a charnel-house for the 
vultures. 

In Gallam ! Words to be repeated with 
mystery and contemplation ! 

“Some day,” said Fatou-gaye to Jean, 
“ some day you will go back with me 
into the land of Gallam.” 

Old, sacred land, of which she dreamed 
for hours with closed eyes ! The land of 
gold and ivory, in whose warm waters 
sleeps the alligator in the shadows of the 
lofty mangroves, and where the heavy 
foot of the elephant is heard striking the 


The Romance of a Spahi ’. 171 

ground as he rushes through the forest 
solitudes. 

Formerly, Jean had dreamed of seeing 
this country; Fatou-gaye had excited his 
imagination with her extraordinary re- 
citals and descriptions, but he no longer 
had any curiosity to see more of the coun- 
try of Africa. He liked better to con- 
tinue his monotonous life at Saint Louis, 
always to be ready there for the happy 
moment of his return to the beloved 
Cevennes. 

He no longer wished to go into the 
land of Gallam, where the air was so hot 
and oppressive, and he began to have a 
horror of burying himself in the suffoca- 
tion of the interior. 

He dreamed of his own native land, 
with its mountains and shining rivers, 
and thought no longer of the land of 
Fatou-gaye; it made him warm, and gave 
him the headache. 


172 The Romance of a Spa hi. 


XIII. 

Fatou-gaye could not look upon a hip- 
popotamus without running the fearful 
risk of dropping dead ; it w.as a curse 
thrown over her family many years before, 
in the land of Gallam. 

They had endeavored in every way to 
exorcise the spell, but in vain, and there 
were numerous instances of persons drop- 
ping dead at the sight of these enormous 
beasts, and the curse had followed her 
ancestors unmercifully for several gen- 
erations. 

In the Soudan, it is no unusual thing 
to hear of such a curse; certain families 
can not see a lion, others a hippopotamus, 
and others an alligator — the worst mis- 
fortune of them all, a misfortune so great 
that charms and amulets avail nothing. 


i73 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

One can imagine the precautions nec- 
essary to be taken by the ancestors of 
Fatou-gaye, for in Gallam the hippopot- 
amus is always abroad, roaming about in 
the swamps, where he loves to sport in 
the undergrowth and stagnant waters. 

Fatou-gaye, having learned there was 
a pet hippopotamus at a certain house in 
Saint Louis, always avoided passing that 
way, for fear of yielding to the great 
curiosity she had to look upon this terri- 
ble beast, of which her friends had given 
her minute descriptions. 


174 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


XIV. 

The warm, oppressive days passed by 
in dreary monotony; they were all alike, 
never any change — the same regular 
duties at the barracks, the same burning 
sun on its white walls, the same unbroken 
silence resting on all things. 

There were rumors of war with Bou- 
bakar-Segou, the son of El Hadj, and 
the spahis discussed it unceasingly, for 
nothing ever happened in that dead city; 
the sounds from Europe seemed extin- 
guished by heat and distance. 

Winter approached; the breakers on 
the coast were calm, and there were 
days when the air failed the lungs, when 
the warm sea waters were as unruffled 
and as smooth as oil, reflecting like a 
great mirror the burning tropical lights. 


i75 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

Jean often suffered from weariness and 
lassitude in that enervating climate, and 
from time to time with homesickness, 
which was always there in his heart ready 
to awaken to make him suffer. 

Did he love Fatou-gaye? He did not 
know, himself ; he certainly considered 
her an inferior being — a little nearer his 
equal, perhaps, than his yellow wolf-dog — 
and he did not trouble himself to ascertain 
what other feelings he had for the little 
black creature, whose soul was as black 
as her skin. 

She lied and dissimulated, and pos- 
sessed an incredible amount of malice and 
perversity. Jean knew this ; but she was 
so absolutely devoted to him — the devo- 
tion of a dog for its master, the adoration 
of a negro for his fetich — that he was 
touched and softened by it. 

Sometimes pride awoke in his heart, 
and his dignity as a white man revolted 


176 The Romance of a Spa hi. 

at the life he was leading. The troth he 
had plighted with Jeanne Mery, and this 
treachery to this little black creature, 
sometimes rose before his honest con- 
science, and he was ashamed of his weak- 
ness. 

Fatou-gaye had grown to be very beau- 
tiful. As she walked, supple and grace- 
ful, with the swinging movement which 
the African women seem to have bor- 
rowed from the feline tribe of their own 
country, as she passed along with a white 
muslin bon-bon thrown gracefully over 
her swelling bosom and shapely arms, 
she possessed the lovely grace of an 
ancient amphora. 

Under that high head-dress, sparkling 
with amber and jewels, her form for the 
moment had something of the mysterious 
beauty of an idol of polished ebony. 

Her great dark eyes, encircled with 
blue, were always half closed and dreamy, 


The Romance of a Spahi . 177 

and when she smiled, disclosing her pearly- 
white teeth, there was about her a certain 
indescribable charm and grace ; a combi- 
nation of the monkey, the young virgin, 
and the tigress. 

Jean had a superstitious dread of her 
amulets; not that he had any faith in 
them, but seeing them everywhere, and 
knowing they were kept to bind him 
closer to her, he began to regard them 
with a peculiar horror. 

They were on the ceiling, on the walls, 
concealed under the mats, on the sofa — 
they were everywhere — presenting the 
fantastic appearance of things bewitched. 

When he awoke in the morning he felt 
them gliding over his chest, and at last it 
seemed that he was irrevocably entangled 
in their dark, invisible manacles. 

After awhile his money gave out. He 
declared very decidedly that he would 

send Fatou-gaye away, and employ the 
12 


i 78 The Romance of a Spahi. 

last two years of his exile in winning the 
golden epaulets of a quarter-master that 
had so long dazzled his eyes and hopes. 

He determined to send to his parents 
a small amount each month, to render 
their lives more comfortable. Then he 
would purchase wedding presents for 
Jeanne Mery, and he would also lay 
aside a little money to assist him in de- 
fraying the expenses of the marriage fes- 
tivities. 

Was it the baleful spell of the amulets, 
the force of habit, or the inertia of his 
will-power in that enervating climate? 
For Fatou-gaye continued to hold him 
under her little black hand — he did not 
send her away. 

Yet he dreamed of his betrothed, and 
there was a radiance around his memory 
of her. “ She grows more beautiful every 
day,” they had written him. He tried to 
picture her as his wife, with all the lovely 


The Romance of a Spahi. 179 

promise of her youth fulfilled, and his 
whole heart was full of her image. 

And his old parents, how he loved 
them ! For his father he had a profound 
and filial love, a veneration that ap- 
proached idolatry. But the most tender, 
most sacred spot in his heart was given 
to his mother. 

Take soldiers, sailors, and all of those 
young men abandoned to a life on the 
great seas, or in lands of exile — take the 
most rude and careless, the most dissi- 
pated, the most reckless of roues — look 
into their hearts, and nearly always you 
will find enthroned in that sanctuary a 
mother — an old peasant woman, perhaps ; 
a good woman from Brittany in her high 
white cap, or a woman of Biscay with 
her head-dress of woolen. 


1 80 The Romance of a Spa hi. 


XV. 

Winter arrived for the fourth time. 

The days were sultry and oppressive, 
without a breath of air stirring. All 
along the coast of Africa, the sands were 
dazzling and white under the burning 
rays of the sun. 

The sea waters were calm and un- 
ruffled, save when the battles of the 
sharks made them turbulent, for these 
were the days for the great fish combats. 
Suddenly, the polished surface of the 
waters become troubled over an extent of 
several hundred meters, and the water is 
tossed up violently in jets and sprays. 

This agitation is caused by immense 
banks of fugitive fish scampering away 
with all the swiftness of their millions of 
fins, before the hungry, voracious sharks 
in pursuit of them. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 1 8 1 

These are also the days best loved by 
the negro boatmen for their long, swift 
boat-races, and the shores are crowded 
with black people who stand in animated 
groups, exciting the contestants with a 
great tumult of cheers ; and there, as in 
France, the victors are welcomed with the 
clapping of hands, and the vanquished 
with hisses. 

Jean never appeared at the barracks 
unless his presence was absolutely needed; 
and his comrades often filled his place. 
The officers shut their eyes to this ar- 
rangement, which permitted him to pass 
almost the entire day at the house of 
Samba-Hamet. 

For they all loved Jean; the charm of 
intelligence and honesty redeemed him, 
and his attractive form, voice, and man- 
ner had gradually cast over them a spell 
of which they were almost unconscious. 
He had, in spite of everything, won their 


I 82 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

esteem and respect, at the same time 
making for himself a sort of situation 
that gave him almost liberty and inde- 
pendence. 

One day he entered the barracks at 
call of retreat. 

The old quarters did not wear their 
accustomed look of loneliness and gloom. 

Groups of spahis were ascending and 
descending the stair-way, conversing ani- 
matedly and noisily. 

There was something in the air. 

“Good news for you, Peyral ! ” cried 
Alsatian Muller; “ you go to-morrow to 
Algeria, lucky fellow that you are.” 

Ten or twelve spahis had arrived from 
France by a boat from Dakar, and as 
many of the old ones were to be sent, as a 
special favor, to finish their time of service 
in Algeria. 

Jean was among the number. They 
were to leave the next morning for Dakar, 


The Romance of a Spahi. 183 

where they would take a packet-boat des- 
tined for Bordeaux. Then they would 
go to Marseilles by way of the south, and, 
with the delays of the route, would catch 
a glimpse of their native land. At Mar- 
seilles they would take a packet-boat for 
Algeria, a land of milk and honey for the 
soldier ; and so the last years of their 
service would pass away as a dream. 


184 The Romance of a Spahi. 


XVI. 

Jean returned to his lodgings, strolling 
along the deserted banks of the river. 

A starry night had fallen upon the Sen- 
egal ; the fragile crescent of the moon 
hung low on the horizon ; fires were flash- 
ing on the opposite bank of the river in 
the negro village of Sorr, tracing on the 
still, warm waters their vague lights and 
shadows. 

In the distance he heard the deafening 
noise of the tam-tam sounding the spring- 
time revelry, which he had heard four 
times already at the same place, and 
which was blended with the memory of 
his first enervating pleasures in Africa ; 
it now saluted him on his departure. 

His mind was troubled ; his thoughts 
and impressions were confused and in- 
coherent. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 185 

The air was full of heat and phos- 
phorus; a tranquil melancholy, a calm full 
of mystery, rested on all the borders of 
the Senegal. 

Was it really true, this unexpected 
news? It had been whispered for a long 
time ; now it was confirmed, and his name 
was on the list. To-morrow he would de- 
scend the river, never to return ! 

Preparations for their departure would 
not begin until to-morrow; this evening 
there was nothing to do but to dream — 
to bid adieu to all things in that land of 
exile. 

In less than a month, he would proba- 
bly pay a flying visit to his native village ; 
he would embrace his old parents, and 
the betrothed of his boyhood — Jeanne 
Mery, now grown into a serious woman — 
he would see them all in passing, as in a 
dream. 

But he was not prepared for the meet- 


1 86 The Romance of a Spahi. 

ing, and painful reflections mingled with 
his great, unexpected happiness. 

He was about to return, after an ab- 
sence of four years, almost a beggar — 
without even having won the modest 
shoulder-straps of a sergeant — and shab- 
bily dressed, for he would not have time 
to provide himself with a new and suitable 
outfit in which to make his appearance at 
the village. 

And then to acclimate himself in Al- 
geria— to spend the remaining years of 
his service anywhere but on the banks of 
the gloomy Senegal, whose sadness w^s 
now so familiar to him ! 

Alas ! he loved the Senegal; he realized 
now that he was attached to that unfort- 
unate country by a number of strong and 
mysterious ties. 

He had been foolishly overjoyed at the 
thought of his return, yet he loved the 
land of sand, the house of Samba-Hamet, 


The Romance of a Spahi. 187 

the excessive light and heat, and even the 
great gloom and silence ; he was not pre- 
pared to leave it all so suddenly. 

The effluvium, the subtle exhalations, 
all that by which he was surrounded, had 
by degrees become infiltered into the 
blood in his veins. He felt an invisible 
power holding him back as if he was 
inextricably entangled in the gloomy 
shackles of those amulets. 

His brain was confused ; he was dazed ; 
this sudden deliverance frightened him. 


1 88 The Romance of a Spahi. 


XVII. 

Military departures are always sudden. 
The following day, the baggage was hastily 
packed, the papers put in order, and Jean 
found himself leaning over the side of the 
vessel, descending the river. 

Through the smoke from his cigarette 
he could see Saint Louis disappearing in 
the distance ; crouching near him on the 
deck was Fatou-gaye with all her posses- 
sions, inclosed in haste in three large 
gourds. 

Jean had taken his last franc to pay her 
way to Dakar ; he had done so willingly, 
happy to rid himself of this last phantasy, 
but glad to keep her a little longer under 
his protection. The tears which she shed, 
the cris de veuve , as was customary in her 
own country, were heart-rending to hear, 


The Romance of a Spahi. 189 

and touched him deeply; he forgot that 
she was wicked, deceitful, and black. 

As his heart expanded with joy at the 
thoughts of his return, his pity and ten- 
derness for Fatou-gaye increased ; he 
would carry her with him as far as Da- 
kar — it was time gained in which to decide 
what to do with her. 


190 The Romance of a Spahi. 


XVIII. 

Dakar is an old colonial town built on 
sand and rocks of a reddish color — an im- 
provised harbor for the packet-boats of 
that western point of Africa called Cape 
Verd. 

Here and there on the desolate sand- 
hills grew the mighty baobabs, and over 
the whole country floated dense clouds of 
vultures and eagle-fishers. 

Fatou-gaye was temporarily installed 
there in the house of a mulattress. She 
declared that she did not wish to return 
to Saint Louis, and there her plans ended. 
She knew not what would become of her; 
neither did Jean, for he had failed to 
reach any decision in regard to her, and 
besides, he had no money. 

The next morning, a few hours before 


The Romance of a SpaJii. ig i 

the departure of the packet-boat, Fatou- 
gaye crouched on the floor in the hut of 
the mulattress, beside her three gourds. 
She was speechless ; her eyes were fixed 
and immovable, full of grief and wild de- 
spair, as if her heart was broken. 

Jean stood near her twisting his mous- 
tache, not knowing what to do. 

Suddenly the door opened noisily, and 
a spahi entered like the wind, his eyes 
flashing with excitement, his manner anx- 
ious and confused. 

It was Pierre Boyer, who for more 
than a year had been the comrade and 
room-mate of Jean at Saint Louis. 

They were both reserved, and rarely 
ever spoke, but they esteemed each other, 
and when Boyer went to serve at Goree, 
they grasped each other’s hands with cor- 
diality. 

Taking off his cap, Pierre murmured a 
rapid excuse for entering so unceremo- 


192 The Romance of a Spahi. 

niously, and trembling with emotion, he 
took Jean’s hand. 

“ Peyral,” said he, “ I have been search- 
ing for you all day; listen to me a mo- 
ment. I have a great favor to ask of 
you ; hear what it is, and reflect on it. 
To-morrow you are going to Algeria. 
Alas ! to-morrow I go to Guadiangue, 
in. Ouankarah, with some others from 
Goree. They are fighting there ; it will 
only be for three months, and you will 
surely gain promotion or a medal. We 
have the same time, are the same age, so 
it will not change the time for your re- 
turn home. Peyral, will you exchange 
places with me ? ” 

Jean had divined it from the first; his 
eyes were dilated with intense emotion ; 
a tumultuous flood of thoughts, convic- 
tions, and indecisions rushed through his 
brain ; he lowered his head, folded his 
arms in deep thought. Fatou-gaye, who 


193 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

understood it all, arose, panting, breath- 
less, awaiting the sentence that was about 
to fall from his lips, which she trembled 
to hear. 

“ Peyral,” continued Boyer, “you will 
make a good thing of this — ” 

“Have you asked the others?” said 
Jean. 

“Yes,” he replied, “but they have re- 
fused me ; they have good reasons for it, 
but it will just suit you. The Governor 
of Goree is interested in me, and prom- 
ises you his protection if you will ex- 
change. We thought of you at first 
(looking at Fatou-gaye), for you like this 
country. On your return from Guadian- 
gue, you will go to finish your service at 
Saint Louis; they have agreed to this, 
and it shall be done, I swear to you.” 

“ But we will not have time to arrange 
matters,” interrupted Jean, who, feeling 
lost, wished to recover himself if possible. 

13 


194 The Romance of a Spahi. 

“Yes,” said Boyer, “we have the 
whole afternoon before us ; you will have 
nothing to do, all has been arranged with 
the Governor; the papers are ready, your 
signature is all that is needed. I will go 
to Goree and return in two hours, and all 
will be done. Listen, Peyral : here are 
my savings, three hundred francs; they 
are yours, to install yourself on your re- 
turn to Saint Louis, or to spend as you 
wish.” 

“Thank you,” said Jean; “but I will 
not accept pay for this ; ” and he turned 
away his head proudly. 

And Boyer, who saw that he was of- 
fended, grasped his hand, saying gently: 

“ Do not be angry, Peyral.” And they 
stood before each other, speechless and 
silent. 

Fatou-gaye, who saw that she might 
lose all by speaking, knelt on the floor, 
reciting prayers, embracing Jean’s knees, 


The Romance of a Spahi . 195 

and endeavoring to drag him toward 
her. 

Jean, who was ashamed that Boyer 
should witness such a scene, said roughly: 

“ Leave me, Fatou-gaye, I entreat you. 
You are becoming silly.” 

But Boyer did not regard the scene 
as ridiculous ; on the contrary, he was 
touched by it. 

The sunlight crept through the open 
door, and illuminated their gay uniforms 
and lighted up their handsome, animated 
faces, now so full of anxiety and inde- 
cision. It fell on the silver rings that 
encircled the arms of Fatou-gaye, and 
made them shine like glittering serpents. 

There they stood, those three aban- 
doned human beings, in the poor, bare 
hut of wood and straw, with beating 
hearts and flashing eyes, about to decide 

their destinies. k 

i 

Peyral,’ continued Boyer, in a low, 


196 The Romance of a Spahi. 

gentle voice, “it is because I am an Al- 
gerian; you know what this means. In 
that country there is a village where my 
parents are expecting me. I am their 
only child ; you ought to know what it is 
to return to one’s country.” 

“Well, yes,” said Jean; “I will ex- 
change ;” and throwing his red cap behind 
him, he stamped the ground with his foot. 
“I will remain. Let us go.” 

Pierre clasped him in his arms and em- 
braced him, and Fatou-gaye raised a 
shout of triumph; then hiding herself be- 
hind Jean, shook with sobs, which ended 
in bursts of nervous laughter. 


The Romance of a Spain, 


i9 7 


XIX. 

It was necessary to hasten ; Pierre 
Boyer went as he came, without cere* 
mony. 

He hurried to Goree, bearing the pre 
cious paper to which Jean had placed his 
soldiers signature, correctly and legibly 
written. It was signed and countersigned, 
his baggage was transferred, and the sub- 
stitution effected. 

All was concluded so rapidly that the 
two spahis had no time for reflection, and 
promptly at four o’clock the packet-boat 
put itself en route, carrying away Pierre 
Boyer, and leaving poor Jean behind. 

When all was irrevocably ended and 
Jean found himself alone on the sandy 
beach watching the departing vessel, he 
grew desperate, and his heart was full 


198 The Romance 0/ a Spahi. 

of anguish and terror at what he had 
done. 

He became enraged with Fatou-gaye ; 
her presence horrified him, and he drove 
her away from him. 

He felt as if he had just signed a com- 
pact of death with the black country, 
which seemed to possess for him a fatal 
fascination. 

He ran along the sands without know- 
ing where he was going ; he wished to 
breathe the fresh air, to be alone, and to 
follow with his eye as long as he could 
the disappearing boat. 

The sun was yet high when he started 
out, and under the great, blazing luminary 
the desert plains had an impressive 
majesty. 

For a long time he walked on the wild 
coast, then on the crests of the sand-hills, 
and then high up on the ruddy cliffs, to 
catch the last glimpse of the vessel fast 


The Romance of a Spahi. 199 

fading from view in the distance, flying 
over the waters before a strong wind. 

He was so distracted with grief that he 
no longer felt the burning rays of the 
sun ; he thought of the years that he had 
yet to spend in that gloomy land, when 
he could have been yonder, swiftly sailing 
toward his dear old home. 

What malignant influence, what charm, 
what amulet, had kept him there, great 
God ! 

He walked onward toward the north 
so as not to lose sight of the boat which 
was rapidly disappearing. A shower of 
startled locusts beat against his face and 
breast as he passed through the winter 
herbs ; his hands were torn and bleeding 
from contact with the thorny plants. 

He had gone a great distance into the 
depths of a rough, savage country in the 
direction of Cape Verd. 

For some time he had seen ahead of 


200 The Romance of a Spahi . 

him, afar off, a large, isolated tree, more 
immense even than the baobab, with a 
dense, dark foliage — a giant of the flora of 
the ancient world, forgotten there for 
ages. 

He sat down, exhausted, on the sands 
beneath this great dome of shadows, and 
bowing his head, began to weep. When 
he arose, the boat had vanished, and 
night had fallen. 

The evening was clear and cool; as the 
twilight shadows deepened, the immense 
tree rose like a great black mass on the 
desolate plains. 

Before him lay the tranquil sea, the 
terraced cliffs, and as far as the eye could 
see, the mighty Cape Verd, with its mo- 
notonous plains, divided into deep defiles 
and ravines, a dismal and dreary country 
with little vegetation of any kind. 

Behind him, in the direction of the in- 
terior, were mysterious ridges of low hills, 


201 


The Romance of a Spain . 

and in the distance the great baobabs, 
casting shadows like those of the madre- 
pore. 

The atmosphere was dense and heavy 
almost to suffocation ; the sun went down 
in thick vapors, its yellow disc strangely 
increased and distorted in the mirage. 

The air was filled with perfumes from 
the large white blossoms of the datura 
and the sickly odor of the belladonna. 
Myriads of moths flitted about these 
poisonous flowers, and from the bushes 
sounded the plaintive notes of the ring- 
dove. 

The whole land was covered with a 
deadly vapor, and the horizon was dull, 
sombre, and almost indefinable. 

And there behind him lay the interior, 
which to him was once so full of wonder 
and mystery — now it was nothing to him. 
Podor, nor Medina, the land of Gallam, 
nor the far distant Timbuctoo — he no 


202 


The Romance of a Spain . 

longer wished to see them ; his heart di- 
vined their gloom, sadness, and suffoca- 
tion. His thoughts were of his own 
country, and he only desired to free him- 
self from this horrible nightmare and de- 
part at any price. 

The tall African shepherds with fierce 
and savage countenances passed him, 
driving toward the village their lean, 
hump-backed beeves. 

The image of the sun, which is called in 
the Bible “a sign in the heavens,” van- 
ished as quickly as a pale meteor, and it 
was night. Above him, the boughs of the 
mighty tree formed a gloomy temple. ' He 
fell asleep, and dreamed of his own home 
at this hour on summer evenings ; of his 
mother, his betrothed ; then he dreamed 
that he was dead, and would never see 
them again. 


The Romance of a Spaht. 203 


XX. 

The die was cast, and it was necessary 
for him to go on to the end of his destiny. 

Two days afterward, Jean embarked in 
the place of his friend on board of a little 
man-of-war vessel, to report at the distant 
post of Guadiangue, in Ouankarah, where 
they were sending men and munitions to 
reinforce that obscure post. 

In the adjoining country affairs were 
in a confused state, so much so that cara- 
vans could no longer cross the desert. 

It was a dispute between the negroes 
of different rapacious tribes and pillaging 
kings, which would no doubt be settled 
during the winter, when Jean, according 
to the promise made by the Governor to 
Boyer, would be returned to Saint Louis, 
to end his years of service. 


204 jTA? Romance of a Spa hi . 

There were many people crowded on 
the little vessel. Fatou-gaye was there ; 
she had succeeded in getting aboard with 
her usual cunning and persistence, passing 
herself off as the wife of a black sharp- 
shooter ; she had followed Jean, with her 
three gourds. 

Then there was a regiment of soldiers 
from Goree, who had been in encamp- 
ment there for a season, and about twenty 
native sharp-shooters with their whole 
families. 

It was a curious mixture, for they had 
several wives apiece, and numerous chil- 
dren ; besides, they were taking with them 
their provisions, millet in gourds, and 
their clothes, also packed in gourds, 
their amulets, and a crowd of domestic 
animals. There was a great agitation on 
board at the time of their departure ; a 
great entanglement of people and things. 

The negresses slept tranquilly on the 


The Romance of a Spahi. 205 

floor of the deck, wrapped up in their 
clothes, as close together as sardines in 
a box. 

The vessel moved gently southward, 
and was soon lost in regions where the 
tropical heat every moment became more 
and more intense. 





206 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


XXL 

It was a night of equatorial calm; an 
absolute silence reigned ; the air was still 
and motionless, and there was scarcely a 
perceptible movement of the sails. 

The warm sea waters were gleaming 
and phosphorescent, reflecting as in an 
immense mirror the brilliant heavens 
above them ; they were like two great mir- 
rors — the sea and the sky — reflecting each 
other, blending in the distance. 

The vessel seemed to be sailing through 
a terrible gulf with no horizon, where all 
was overwhelmed in a cosmic profundity, 
vague and infinite ; the moon dipped into 
the sea, a blood-red circle without a ray, 
amid vapors pale and phosphorescent. 

In the first geological ages, before day 
was separated from darkness, when all 


The Romance of a Spahi. 207 

things wore the tranquillity of expectation, 
the repose between the creations must 
have been a grand and inexpressible im- 
mobility. At that epoch when the world 
was not yet condensed, when the clouds 
were suspended, uncreated lead and iron, 
when all eternal matter was sublimated in 
the intense heat of a primitive chaos — 
what a sublime silence then ! 


208 The Romance of a Spa hi. 


XXII. 

They had been en route three days. 

At sunrise, when all things were glitter- 
ing in the light of golden clouds, they 
saw far away in the distance a line of 
green — an indescribable green — that brill- 
iant color with which the Chinese paint- 
ers trace on a fan some gorgeous land- 
scape. 

This line was the coast of Guinea. 
On arriving at the mouth of the Diak- 
halleme, the vessel directed its course to- 
ward the wide entrance of the river. 

The country there is as flat as that of 
the Senegal; otherwise the face of nature 
is entirely different Everywhere there is 
an equatorial verdure of eternal freshness, 
and the foliage on the trees is a bright 
emerald green, a color which the trees in 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 209 

France never attain, even in the leafy 
month of June. 

All along the banks of the river there 
are forests of a uniform breadth, overshad- 
owing warm, inert waters — forests full 
of poisonous odors and venomous reptiles. 

This country, as all of Africa, rests 
under a spell of gloom and silence; yet it 
is a great relief for the eye after the 
monotony of the sands of the desert. 

At the village of Ponpoubal, on the 
Diakhalleme, the vessel-landed its passen- 
gers to await the canoes which would 
carry them to their destination. 

On this July night at nine o’clock, 
Jean, with Fatou-gaye and the spahisfrom 
Goree, took their places in a canoe man- 
ned by six black rowers under the guid- 
ance of Samba-Boubon, the most experi- 
enced pilot on the rivers of Guinea, to 
proceed to Guadiangue, situated several 
leagues up the river. 

14 


210 


The Romance of a Spahi, 

The night was warm, starry, and cloud- 
less — a real equatorial night. 

They glided up the calm river with 
astonishing swiftness, borne toward the 
interior by the rapid current and the inde- 
fatigable efforts of the rowers. The banks 
of the river faded away into obscurity, 
and forest after forest fled by them. 

Samba-Boubon led the chant of the 
rowers, sometimes pitching his plaintive, 
ringing voice on the highest key, then 
descending suddenly to low, soft notes 
full of a strange melancholy. 

Then the chorus would begin, slow 
and grave, and all through the night was 
heard that plaintive voice, always followed 
by the same response from the rowers. 

For a long time they chanted the praises 
of the spahis, their horses, and even their 
dogs, and at last the praises of the family 
of Soumare, and of Saboutane, a legend 
ary Woman of the coast of Gambia. 


21 I 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

When fatigue or sleep relaxed the reg- 
ular movement of their oars, Samba-Bou- 
bon hissed through his teeth like a ser- 
pent, and this hissing was repeated by all 
the rowers, who became reanimated in 
their ardor as if by magic. 

All night long they glided past the 
great forests sacred in the religion of the 
Mandingoes, whose ancient trees extended 
overhead their gaunt and angular branches 
like gigantic structures of bones dimly 
defined in the starlight — grand rigidities 
of stone. 

The songs of the rowers, the rushing 
of the waters, the weird chatterings of the 
monkeys in the woods, and the cries of the 
marsh-birds mingled their sad, nocturnal 
voices in the depths of the forest; and 
sometimes in the distance they heard the 
cries of human beings, the cries of the 
dying, the firing of guns, and the deafen- 
ing strokes of the warlike tam-tam, all 


212 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

blending in a wild harmony with the mel- 
ancholy music of the black rowers. 

As they passed the outskirts of some 
of the villages along the route, the forests 
were brilliantly illuminated by the light 
of blazing fires, for there was warfare in 
all that country — Sarakholes against Lan- 
doumans, Nalous against Tonbacayces — ■ 
and many of the villages were fired. 

For leagues there was silence — the 
silence of night in deep forests — unbroken 
save by the monotonous chants and the 
muffled sound of the oars dividing the 
still waters through the region of shadows. 

They were borne along swiftly toward 
the interior; the rowers rowed with fury 
and superhuman force, and as they neared 
their destination, they seemed electrified 
as with a fever. 

At last the dim outlines of a high rock 
rose before them, from which gleamed 
bright lights. 


213 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

Samba-Boubon waved a torch, and 
raised a rallying cry; the inhabitants of 
Guadiangue came to meet them, and their 
journey was at an end. 

Guadiangue is perched upon the sum- 
mit of a vertical rock, which they ascended 
by tortuous paths, illuminated by the 
flaring torches of the blacks. 

When they reached the top of the rock, 
they were conducted to a large flat house 
which had been prepared for them, where 
they slept on the ground on mats, await- 
ing the break of day. 


214 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


XXIII. 

After a few hours of sleep, Jean was 
the first to awaken, and on opening his 
eyes he saw the daylight gleaming 
through the chinks of the wooden house, 
revealing the prostrate forms of his com- 
panions reposing on the ground, their 
heads resting on their clothes. 

There were Bretons, Alsatians, and 
Picards, all with the blonde hair of the 
North; and Jean in the first moments of 
his awakening had a kind of dazed con- 
ception of the sad scene, and he thought 
of all these young lives wasted in a coun- 
try of exile, and some of them so soon to 
meet death. 

Reclining near them was the graceful 
form of Fatou-gaye, her black arms, en- 
circled with silver rings, thrown above her 


21 5 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

head ; those supple arms which he knew 
on her awakening would be so eager to 
entwine about him. 

It began to dawn upon him that he was 
lost in the depths of an immense savage 
region, farther than ever from his native 
land ; so far that even a letter could not 
reach him — in an obscure village of 
Guinea. 

He rose noiselessly, so as not to awaken 
Fatou-gaye and the spahis, and approach- 
ed an open window to get a glimpse of 
this unknown country. 

The village crowned a precipice more 
than a hundred metres high, and the hut 
in which he stood seemed suspended in 
the air. At his feet was spread out a 
landscape of the interior, scarcely visible 
in the pale morning light. There were 
abrupt hills covered with an unfamiliar 
vegetation, at the foot of which flowed 
the river that had brought him there, 


216 The Romance of a Spahi. 

gliding like a silver ribbon through the 
marshes, half veiled in a white cloud of 


morning vapors. 


The Romance of a Spahi . 217 


XXIV. 

Jean left the house and started out for 
a stroll through the village; he could 
have imagined himself anywhere than in 
an obscure corner of the interior of 
Africa. 

The verdure, the bright foliage of the 
trees, the limpid river flowing over a bed 
of many-colored stones, between two walls 
of humid, polished rocks, made the scene 
one of picturesque beauty. 

Scattered about everywhere were groups 
of women with complexions of a reddish- 
brown, the color of the rocks, washing 
their clothes in the river, and relating 
with animation the thrilling events of a 
combat the night previous. Warriors 
were passing and repassing over the ford, 
armed cap-a-pie , ready for battle at a 
moment’s notice. 


218 The Romance of a Spahz. 

There was a certain novelty about all 
this which delighted Jean; it was so dif- 
ferent from the oppressive silence and 
gloom which weighs on the hearts and 
spirits of those who dwell on the banks 
of the Senegal. 

He felt the exhilarating charm of the 
forests, flowers, hills, and bright waters ; 
there was nothing sad or depressing in 
this terrible splendor in nature. 

Suddenly he heard the deafening noise 
of the tam-tam, the music of war, and it 
approached so near that Jean and the 
women who were washing in the stream 
ran to look out through the blue openings 
in the rocks. An ally chief was passing 
above them with great pomp and splen- 
dor, marching to the sound of martial 
music, the arms and trinkets of the war- 
riors in his suite flashing in the blaze of 
the sunlight as they moved along. 

It was nearly midday before Jean re- 


219 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

turned to his quarters in the village, walk- 
ing through verdant paths in the shade of 
the trees overhanging the streets. Some 
of the houses in Guadiangue are high, 
and almost elegant under their tall roofs 
of stubble. 

Although the foliage and vegetation 
wore the vivid colors of early spring-time, 
and the shadowy forests looked cool and 
inviting, the days were extremely hot and 
oppressive. In the morning, even before 
sunrise, in these forests inhabited by 
monkeys, green parrots, and rare hum- 
ming-birds,* the air was hot and em- 
poisoned with deadly odors; serpents 
glided through the wet herbs, and it 
seemed that all the heat of the equator 
had concentrated there. 

Jean began to regard his sojourn in 
Ouankarah as a time of delightful freedom 
in a country marvelous for the beauty of 
its vegetation and the grandeur of its 


220 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

forests ; a happy respite after the crush- 
ing monotony and gloom of his life at 
Saint Louis. 

In three months, as was predicted, the 
country was at peace ; war and the 
slaughter of the blacks was at an end. 

Caravans began to pass again, bringing 
to Guadiangue from the depths of the 
interior gold, ivory, feathers, and other 
products of Guinea and the Soudan. 

An order was received for the reinforce- 
ments to return, and a vessel came to meet 
them at the entrance of the river to carry 
them back to the Senegal. 

But they were not all there, poor spahis ; 
some of them were left sleeping under the 
burning sun, far away from home and 
friends, victims of the deadly African 
fever. 

Jean’s hour had not yet come, and he 
descended the river in the canoe of 
Samba- Boubon. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


221 


XXV. 

The journey in the canoe was begun 
this time at full midday. The waters 
were stagnant and motionless ; the sun 
was in the zenith, and the heat was so 
terrible that the black rowers in spite of 
their courage were forced to cease rowing. 
The canoe drifted slowly on, drawn gently, 
almost insensibly, by the river current. 

The water failed to appease their thirst, 
and they were exhausted and bathed in 
perspiration. Sometimes they rowed 
close to the banks, to profit by the dense 
but dangerous shade of the forest trees. 
Then the spahis caught a glimpse of 
people moving about in the deep shadows 
of the mangroves, for there is a race of 
people who inhabit the marshes of Africa, 
dwelling there among the great roots of 
those trees. 


222 


The Romance of a Spahi. 

And there, not two paces from them, 
were serpents gliding along so gently that 
they did not awaken the sleeping birds. 
Great blue alligators were stretched out 
lazily in the mud, their slimy mouths 
gaping wide. On their backs were perched 
airy white aigrettes, who slept there to 
escape the mud that covered everything. 

Martin-fishers with brilliant plumage 
were taking their afternoon siesta, in com- 
pany with the lizards, on the branches of 
the trees almost dipping in the sluggish 
waters. 

Rare butterflies flitted here and there ; 
with their gorgeous wings closed, hiding all 
their metallic splendor, they resembled 
dead leaves, but with their wings spread 
open they shone like sparkling jewels in 
the sunlight. 

Entwining, interlacing everything, were 
myriads of roots of the mandrake trees ; 
they look like strands of threads, or the 


The Romance of a Spahi. 223 

thousands of veins in the trunk of an 
elephant, and cover vast areas of country. 

In the mud with the alligators were 
immense shoals of crabs perpetually mov- 
ing their white ivory claws as if to seize 
in their dreams an imaginary prey. 

The canoe dividing the waters of the 
Diakhalleme continued its sinuous course 
down the river, threading its way quickly 
through the sombre forests. As they 
neared the sea, the hills and tall trees of 
the interior disappeared, and they soon 
reached an immense flat country with lit- 
tle verdure of any kind except the groves 
of mandrakes, through which ran other 
water-courses. The consummate skill of 
Samba-Boubon was needed to thread the 
way through this labyrinth of rivers. 

The cool shadows of evening began to 
fall, and the mournful cadence of the 
voices of the oarsmen, or the plunge of 
the hippopotamus as it floated off, leaving 


224 The Romance of a Spa hi. 

behind it great whirling eddies on the 
surface of the warm, dark waters, were the 
only sounds to break the mighty silence. 

Fatou-gaye, who was lying at the bottom 
of the canoe for greater safety, closed her 
eyes with fear and trembling, though she 
was already doubly protected with leaves 
and moist canvas thrown over her head. 

When they arrived at Pouponbal, she 
had accomplished the entire journey with- 
out daring to look up for fear of seeing a 
hippopotamus. 

Jean, in order to arouse her, had to 
swear that they had arrived at their 
destination, and the danger over, con- 
sequently. 

She was quite benumbed, and responded 
faintly, entreating Jean to take her in 
his arms and carry her to the boat, which 
he did. 

Those childish ways of hers succeeded 
very well with Jean, and sometimes he 


225 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

allowed himself to spoil Fatou-gaye, for 
he needed someone to cherish, and he 
bestowed his caresses on her for want of 
a better object. 


15 


226 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


XXVI, 

The Governor of Goree fulfilled his 
promise to Pierre Boyer, and Jean was 
returned to Saint Louis to finish his time 
of exile. 

When Jean saw once more the white 
walls of the old city he experienced a deep 
emotion, for he was attached to it as one 
is always attached to a place where one 
has lived for a long time and suffered. 

Houses were not much in demand at 
Saint Louis, so the house of Samba-Hamet 
had found no new tenants. 

Coura-n’diaye saw Jean and Fatou re- 
turning, and opened the door of their old 
lodgings, and things soon resumed their 
former course of monotony and gloom. 

Nothing had changed; the tame storks 
that inhabited the roof clacked, as they 


The Romance of a Spahi. 227 

basked in the sunshine, in the same 
wooden voices, like the grating of a wind- 
mill, and everywhere there were the same 
familiar sounds. 

The negresses were eternally beating 
the millet for the Kouss-Kouss ; the same 
quiet and tranquillity existed at the bar- 
racks — the same silent monotony, the 
same overwhelmed nature; and Jean soon 
grew weary of it all. 

From day to day he shunned Fatou- 
gaye, and she grew more and more wicked 
and exacting; especially since she knew 
that he remained on her account. 

There were frequent scenes between 
them. Sometimes he was exasperated 
beyond endurance with her malice and 
perversity, and he commenced to beat her 
with blows from his whip; not very hard 
at first, but each time with increased vio- 
lence, and sometimes on her naked back 
there were bloody stripes, and then he was 


228 The Romance of a Spahi. 

ashamed of himself, and resolved never to 
strike her again. 

One day, on returning to the house, he 
saw a Khassouke — more like a gorilla 
than a man — pass hurriedly under the 
window. He did not mention it to Fatou- 
gaye ; it was a matter of no consequence 
to him, after all, what she did. All senti- 
ments of tenderness and pity which he 
had once felt for her, had vanished. He 
was weary of her, and allowed her to re- 
main because he was too indifferent to 
force her to go. 

The last year of his exile was drawing 
to a close; he began to count by months. 

Sleep, which at best comes slowly in 
that enervating country, often fled from 
him, and he passed hours of the night lean- 
ing out of the window, dreaming of his 
return. The moon in her course across 
the desert always found him there at the 
window. He loved the brilliant nights; 


The Romance of a Spahi. 229 

the ruddy splendor of the moonbeams 
reflected on the sands and on the bosom 
of the dark river ; even the sinister cries 
of the jackals on the /plains of Sorr had 
become a familiar sound to him, and no 
longer disturbed him. 

And when he thought of leaving it all 
forever, for a moment a gloom overcast 
his joyful anticipations. 


230 The Romance of a Spahi ’ 


XXVII. 

Jean possessed an old silver watch, 
which he esteemed as highly as Fatou did 

her amulets ; it was his old father s watch, 

« 

which he had given him on his departure 
for Africa. With a medal he wore on his 
breast, suspended by a chain around his 
neck, he held it the most precious thing in 
his possession. 

The medal was an image of the Virgin, 
and was placed there by his mother once 
when he was very ill, long ago in his child- 
hood, and he had never abandoned it. 
He was lying on his little bed, attacked 
by some malady of childhood, and on 
opening his eyes from a deep sleep he saw 
his mother near him, weeping. It was a 
winter afternoon, and through the window 
he saw the snow lying on the mountains 
like a white mantle. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 231 

His mother raised his head gently and 
passed the medal around his neck; then 
she kissed him, and he fell asleep again. 

That was fifteen years ago, and the 
medal still remained in its place. 

As for the watch, forty years had passed 
since it was purchased by his father, sec- 
ond hand, with his first savings as a sol- 
dier. It had once been a remarkable 
watch, but now it was somewhat out of 
order ; it was big and bulging, and showed 
considerable old age. 

His father, however, had considered it 
an object of great value, for watches were 
not common among the mountaineers of 
his village. 

The watchmaker in a neighboring town, 
who repaired it for Jean just before his 
departure, declared the movements very 
remarkable, and his old father confided to 
him the companion of his youth with all 
sorts of recommendations. 


232 The Romance of a Sfiahi. 

At first Jean wore it proudly, but since 
he had been in the regiment, whenever he 
looked to see the time there were bursts 
of laughter, and his companions made so 
many untimely jokes about the onion that 
several times Jean felt his face flush with 
anger and chagrin. He would have pre- 
ferred all sorts of blows and injuries to 
himself rather than a want of respect for 
the old watch. 

It pained him more because he knew 
that the poor old watch was ridiculous, 
and it gave him an inexpressible pang for 
his comrades to make fun of it, especially 
since he found it so droll himself. 

Finally he ceased to carry it altogether, 
to spare himself these mortifications ; he 
did not even wind it up, so as not to wear 
it out. Since the shaking-up it had on 
the voyage, and under the influence of the 
warm climate, it began to indicate the 
wrong hours ; in fact, it never kept the 
right time. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 233 

He put it away tenderly, with his letters 
and other precious articles, in a box in 
which he kept the souvenirs of his native 
land. 

For a long time Fatou-gaye refrained 
from touching it, though it interested her 
greatly. But one day when J ean was absent 
she opened the precious box, and taught 
herself how to wind the watch. When 
she placed it to her ear and heard the 
ticking, her antics were as ludicrous as a 
monkey with a music-box. 


234 The Romance of a Spa hi. 


XXVIII. 

Several weeks had passed since Jean 
had opened his box of treasures to look 
at his old watch. 

One day when he was on duty at the 
barracks, he was suddenly seized with a 
presentiment. He returned to the house, 
walking rapidly, and on his arrival he 
opened the box. 

He felt a sudden pang, for the watch 
was not there ! 

He feverishly turned over the other 
articles in the box, but the watch was 
gone. 

Fatou-gaye sat in one corner of the 
room, humming abstractedly. She was 
stringing beads, arranging them into 
different designs for a necklace, prepara- 
tory for the grand fete next day. It was 


The Romance of a Spahi ’ 235 

the bamboula of Tabaski, at which she 
wished to appear beautiful and finely 
dressed. 

“You have misplaced it,” said Jean, 
turning to her in a rage. “And I told 
you never to touch it ; what have you 
done with it? Answer me quickly.” 

A cold perspiration was on his brow, 
and, wild with fear and anxiety, he shook 
Fatou-gaye rudely by the arm. 

“Ram” (I do not know), responded 
she, with exasperating indifference ; and 
that was her only answer to his excited 
interrogations. 

But all at once a light broke upon him ; 
he saw her new clothes of most gorgeous 
colors, folded carefully and concealed in 
a corner, ready for to-morrow’s festivities. 
He understood then, and seizing the hol- 
iday garment, he unfolded it and threw it 
upon the floor. 

“ You have sold the watch !” cried he, 


236 The Romance of a Spahi . 

in a rage. “Tell me quickly, Fatou-gaye, 
is it true ?” 

She threw herself on her knees on the 
floor, and he took down his whip. 

She well knew that in stealing the pre- 
cious charm she had committed a very 
grave fault ; but she possessed both impu- 
dence and audacity, for she had already 
done so much, and Jean had always par- 
doned her. 

But she had never seen him like this. 
She screamed aloud with terror, and 
threw herself at his feet, crying : 

“ Pardon, T’Jean, pardon ! ” 

Jean did not feel her influence in this 
moment of his fury, for he had the violent 
passions of a savage boy. He struck 
Fatou-gaye harshly upon her naked back, 
marking it with streaks of blood, and 
with every blow his rage increased. 

Then he was ashamed at what he had 
done, and throwing the whip upon the 
floor, he sank down upon the sofa. 


The Romance of a Spain. 237 


XXIX. 

A moment afterward, Jean went run- 
ning to the market-place at Guet-n’dar. 

Fatou-gaye had confessed all, and given 
the name of the black merchant to whom 
she had sold the poor old watch. He 
hoped it was still there, so that he might 
buy it back again. 

He had just drawn his monthly pay, 
and this would be sufficient. He ran 
very quickly, that he might arrive before 
some black purchaser had carried it off, 
for then it would be lost to him forever. 

Upon the sands at Guet-n’dar there 
was a great tumult, a confusion of all 
races, a Babel of all the languages of the 
Soudan. 

They held there perpetually a grand 
market, attended by people from all coun- 


238 The Romance of a Spahi. 

tries, who sold everything — the most 
trifling of articles, and the most precious. 

There were jewels, cheap and costly ; 
incongruous things, such as gold and 
butter, meat and ointments, sheep on foot 
and manuscripts, captives and soup, amu- 
lets and cabbage. 

On one side of the market-place, mak- 
ing a background for the picturesque 
scene, was an arm of the river, with Saint 
Louis in the distance ; its long, straight 
streets, old white houses, and Babylonian 
terraces blending their lights and shad- 
ows under the lofty palm trees that lifted 
their golden tufts against the deep blue 
skies. On the other side was Guet-n’dar, 
the negro village, with its thousands and 
thousands of pointed roofs. 

Near by were stationed caravans ; cam- 
els slept on the ground, and Moors un- 
packed their bales of arachis and leather 
fetich-bags. Merchant men and women 


The Romance of a Spahi. 239 

crouched upon the sands, elbowing each 
other, their wares almost under the feet 
of their customers. 

There were merchants of sour milk 
contained in goat-skins, the hair turned 
inward; merchants of butter, who fish out 
their merchandise with their fingers from 
the hairy leather bottles ; they also offer 
for sale little balls of salt, which they roll in 
their hands, afterward running their fin- 
gers through their hair to cleanse them. 
These merchants are of the Puehle race, 
and wear enormous chignons ornamented 
with copper. 

Then there were merchants of simples, 
balls of charmed herbs, lizard tails, and 
magic roots ; and merchants who kneel 
on the sands offering for sale gold dust, 
emeralds, pearls, and amber ; merchants 
of pistachios, live ducks, and dead eat- 
ables, provisions dried in the sun, and 
sugar pates covered with flies. 


240 The Romance of a Spain. 

There were merchants of salt fish, of 
pipes, of ancient jewelry — of everything. 
And among their wares were old clothes, 
butter of Gallam for curling the hair, 
tresses cut or torn from the heads of dead 
negresses, trinkets, amulets, old guns, old 
Korans, musk, flutes, silver - handled 
poignards, gongs, horns of giraffes, and 
old guitars. 

Seated under the yellow cocoa trees 
were beggars covered with vermin, lepers 
holding out their hands, eaten with white 
ulcers, demanding alms, and lean old 
women, almost skeletons, with swollen, 
deformed limbs, in the midst of debris of 
all kinds. 

And upon it all the perpendicular rays 
of the sun beat down with a heat as burn- 
ing and intense as that of a fiery furnace, 
and always — always for a horizon — the 
desert, the infinite breadth of sands. 

Jean stopped before the stall of a cer- 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 241 

tain Bou-Bakary-Diam, and regarded with 
anxious eyes and a beating heart the 
heterogeneous mass of things spread out 
before him. 

“ O, yes, white man,” said Bou-Bakary- 
Diam, in the Jaloff tongue. “You mean 
the watch that talks . At four o’clock 
the young girl came to sell it to me for 
three Khaliss of silver, and as it talked, 
I sold it very readily that same day to a 
chief of Trarzas, who has gone with a 
caravan to Timbuctoo.” 

And so it was all over; it was lost to 
him forever, the poor old watch ! Poor 
Jean was as broken-hearted as if he had 
lost a beloved friend through some fault 
of his own. If he could only have gone 
and embraced his old father and asked 
his pardon, that would have brought some 
consolation. Or if it had fallen into the 
sea or river ; or if he had lost it on the 
desert ; but to have it sold, profaned by 

that Fatou-gaye ! 

16 


2\2 The Romance of a Spahi. 

That Fatou-gaye, who for two years 
had taken from him his savings, his dig- 
nity, his life ! To protect her he had re- 
mained in Africa ; for her he had forfeited 
his future as a soldier — for that black 
creature, covered with her hateful amu- 
lets. And as he thought of her wicked 
ways, her impudence, her audacity, he 
was filled with an ungovernable rage. 

He left the market-place and walked 
rapidly toward the house ; his blood was 
boiling and his brain on fire. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 243 


XXX. 

Fatou-gaye awaited his return with 
great anxiety. As soon as he entered the 
door she saw that he had not found the 
old watch, and his manner was so threat- 
ening that she thought he was going to 
kill her. She realized what she had done, 
for she knew that if anyone had taken 
from her a certain cherished amulet, the 
most precious one in her possession, given 
to her by her mother long ago in the land 
of Gallam, she would have thrown herself 
upon the robber and torn him to pieces. 

She understood that she had done some- 
thing terrible, influenced by wicked spirits 
and her great love for fine clothes ; she 
knew that she had brought a great sorrow 
to jean, and she longed to fall at his feet 
and embrace him. She almost hoped he 


244 The Romance of a Spa hi. 

would beat her again, that she might 
touch him ; for she felt that she could die 
happy pressed close to him, begging for 
mercy. And now that he was going to 
kill her, she had nothing to risk ; she 
would put her arm around him, cling to 
him, reach his lips. 

if J ean could have read what was pass- 
ing in her little black heart, he would have 
forgiven her, for it was not difficult to 
move him ; but Fatou-gaye did not speak ; 
she thought it was useless. The idea of 
that last struggle, in which she would cling 
to him, kiss him, die for him, pleased her; 
and she waited, fixing upon him her great 
dark eyes, full of passion and terror. 

But Jean said nothing to her; he did 
not even look at her, and he threw down 
the whip as he entered, for he was ashamed 
of his former brutality to the little creat- 
ure, and did not wish to strike her again. 
Then he began to tear down the amulets 


The Romance of a Spahi. 245 

from the walls and threw them out the 
window; and he took her clothes, her 
trinkets, her gourds, and without saying a 
word, dashed them out on the sands. 

It began to dawn on poor Fatou-gaye 
what awaited her ; she divined that all 
was over ; she was to be driven away, 
ruined. 

When all her possessions had been 
thrown out of the window, scattered upon 
the square below, Jean pointed to the 
door, saying simply, in a deep, stern 
voice, “Go!” 

And Fatou-gaye, with her head bowed 
low, went out, not opening her lips. 

She had never imagined anything so 
horrible as being driven away from him 
like that ; she could not shed a tear or 
utter a lamentation ; she felt that her 
heart was breaking. 


246 The Romance of a Spahi. 


XXXI. 

Then Jean began calmly to collect his 
possessions, and he packed them carefully, 
a habit acquired at the barracks in spite 
of himself ; but he hastened, also, for fear 
of being overcome with regrets. 

He felt somewhat consoled by what he 
had just done, regarding it as a tribute 
paid to the memory of the old watch. 
He was happy at having at last had the 
courage to send Fatou-gaye away, and he 
said to himself he would soon see his old 
father, and, confessing it all, would obtain 
his pardon. 

When he had finished, he descended to 
the apartment of Coura-n’diaye. Fatou- 
gaye had fled there ; he saw her crouching 
silently in one corner of the room. The 
little slaves had collected her things from 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 247 

the street and put them in gourds near 
her. He did not speak to her, but ap- 
proached Coura-n’diaye and paid her his 
monthly rent, anticipating that he would 
never return ; and throwing his light bag- 
gage over his shoulder, he departed. 

Poor old watch ! His father had said 
to him : “Jean, it is a little old, but still 
it is a very good watch ; they don’t make 
as good nowadays. When you are rich, 
in the future, you can buy a fashionable 
one if you wish ; then return this one to 
me. I have worn it forty years, and when 
they bury me, if you have no further use 
for it, put it with me in the coffin ; it will 
keep me company then.” 

Coura-n’diaye took the money from the 
spahi without making any comment on his 
abrupt departure. 

When Jean was out of doors he called 
his wolf-dog, who followed him with his 
ears hanging down, as if he understood 
the situation and was sorry to depart. 


248 The Romance of a Spa hi. 

Then Jean went away without turning 
his head, walking rapidly through the 
lonely streets of the dead city. 


PART III. 


I. 

When Jean had thus definitely expelled 
Fatou-gaye, and was comfortably installed 
at the barracks with his modest posses- 
sions brought from the house of Samba- 
Hamet, he felt really light-hearted, for it 
seemed to him that he was now making 
some progress toward the blissful time 
when he would bid an eternal farewell to 
Africa. Nevertheless, he had in his heart 
some pity for her, and desired to send 
her a little money to facilitate her ar- 
rangements in other quarters. 

Not wishing to see her, he charged 
Muller with the commission. 

Muller went to the lodgings of Coura- 
n’diaye, but Fatou-gaye had departed. 
She had suffered much grief, said the 

( 249 ) 


250 The Romance of a Spahi. 

little slaves in the Jaloff tongue, as they 
gathered around him, all speaking at the 
same time. 

In the evening she refused to eat the 
Kouss-Kouss which they offered her. 

“That night,” said the little Sam-Lele, 
“ I heard her talk in her sleep, but I 
could not understand what she said, and 
then the wolves howled, which is a bad 
sign.” 

She went away before sunrise, bearing 
her gourds upon her head. 

Bafoii-fale-Diop, the head woman of 
the slaves of Coura-n’diaye, a person of a 
very prying nature, followed her -some 
distance, and saw her cross the wooden 
bridge over a narrow arm of the river, 
walking in the direction of N’dar-toute, 
apparently knowing quite well where she 
was going. 

They conjectured she had gone to seek 
the protection of a rich old Mahometan 


The Romance of a Spahi. 251 

priest who lived at N’dar-toute, who 
greatly admired her beauty ; she was 
pretty — indisputably so — although a 
Kafir. 

For a long time Jean avoided passing 
by the old white house, but after awhile 
he ceased to care anything about it. 

And since he had recovered from that 
intoxicating fever of the senses, excited 
by the climate of Africa, and resumed 
the dignity of a white man, sullied so long 
by his life with Fatou-gaye, he looked 
back upon it all with a shudder of pro- 
found disgust, and resolved to lead an 
entirely new life of honesty and morality. 

In the future he would live at the bar- 
racks like a prudent man, and save his 
money to purchase for Jeanne Mery a 
number of souvenirs of the Senegal. He 
would take her, among other things, some 
of those beautiful mats and embroidered 
cloths, to adorn their little cottage ; they 


25 2 The Romance of a Spahi. 

would be the wonder and admiration of 
all the people of the village. And he par- 
ticularly wished to present to her a pair of 
ear-rings and a cross of the fine gold of 
Gallam, which he had already ordered to 
be made by one of the best black artists 
in that country. She would wear them to 
church on Sundays, and certainly there 
would be no other young woman in the 
village with such fine jewels. 

And so this poor spahi, with such a 
grand, grave air, formed in his young 
head a number of childish projects, inno- 
cent dreams of happiness, of domestic 
life and peaceful honesty. 

Jean was now nearly twenty-six years 
old, but he looked much older, which is 
often the case with those who have led 
rough lives upon the sea or in the army. 
These five years on the Senegal had 
changed him greatly; his features were 
more accentuated, thinner, and much 


The Romance of a Spahi. 253 

bronzed by contact with the burning rays 
of the sun. He had acquired a military 
air ; his chest had expanded and shoulders 
broadened, but his figure was still supple 
and slender. 

This air of distinction and his manly 
beauty inspired with involuntary respect 
and admiration all who approached him. 
A painter would have chosen him as a 
noble type of manly perfection. 


254 The Romance of a Spain. 


II. 

One day Jean found two letters in- 
closed in an envelope bearing the post- 
mark of his native village ; one was from 
his mother, the other from Jeanne Mery. 

LETTER OF FRANCOIS^ PEYRAL TO HER SON. 

My Dear Son: Something strange has hap- 
pened since my last letter, which will astonish you 
greatly. But do not grieve about it; only pray to 
the good God as we do, and keep a brave heart. 
I will begin by telling you that there has come to 
this country a young bailiff, M. Prosper Suirot. 
He is very unpopular here, as he is so hard on the 
poor people, and very sullen in his manner; but 
that he has a good position, no one can deny. 

This M. Suirot has demanded in marriage the 
hand of Jeanne Mery, and your uncle Mdry is 
willing to accept him as a son-in-law. Mery 
came here one evening recently, and made quite a 
scene. It seems that he has been making inquiries 
about you from your officers without our knowl- 


The Romance of a Spain . 255 

edge, and they have given him some information 
very detrimental to you. They say you have a 
black wife there, and that you live with her against 
the wishes of your superiors, which is the reason 
you have not been promoted. There are bad 
rumors afloat about you, my son, many things that 
I could never believe; but your uncle showed us 
a paper upon which we could see the seals of 
your regiment. Now Jeanne has come over to our 
house in tears, vowing that she will never marry 
Suirot, and that she will always remain faithful to 
you. She will enter a convent if they press her too 
closely, she declares. She writes you the inclosed 
letter, and tells you what you must do; she is an 
intelligent girl, so take her advice and write im- 
mediately to your uncle as she tells you. You will 
return to us in a few months, and with good con- 
duct until then, and reliance on God, no doubt all 
may be arranged yet. We are much grieved, as 
you must know, and are afraid your uncle Mery 
will forbid Jeanne to visit our house, and that 
would make us very unhappy. 

Peyral joins me in embracing you, and prays 
you to write to ns immediately. 

Your old mother, who adores you, 

Francoise Peyral. 


256 The Romance of a Spahi. 

JEANNE MERY TO HER COUSIN JEAN. 

My Dear Jean: I am so unhappy that I almost 
wish to die. I regret that you have not returned, 
and do not even speak of it, especially since my 
parents, agreeing with my godfather, wish me to 
marry Suirot, of whom I have already written to 
you. They are continually telling me that he is 
rich, and that I ought to feel honored that he has 
requested me to marry him. I continue to say no, 
and to weep. I am so unhappy, my dear Jean, at 
having them all against me. Olivette and Rose 
laugh at me for always having red eyes; I believe 
they would willingly marry Suirot if he only de- 
sired it. At the thought of it, I shudder with 
horror, and I will fly to a convent if they press me 
too closely. If I might only go to your home 
sometimes to speak to your mother, for I have as 
much affection for her as if I were her own daugh- 
ter; but they open their eyes when I go there so 
often, and soon they may forbid it altogether. My 
dear Jean, it is necessary for you to do all that I 
am about to tell you. 

I understand there are some bad rumors about 
you, but I content myself by believing they are 
circulated to influence me, so they do not trouble 


257 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

me. They can not possibly be true, for no one 
knows you so well as I do. Still, I would be glad 
if you would explain some things to me; you know 
it is always pleasant to be assured that what one 
believes is true. Then write immediately to my 
father, and demand my hand in marriage, prom- 
ising to conduct yourself as a well-regulated, 
prudent man, against whom no one can whisper 
an unkind word. After that, I will beg him upon 
my knees. May the good God have mercy upon 
my dear Jean. 

Your betrothed for life, 

Jeanne Mery. 

To those who live in obscure villages 
the vocabulary of passion is unknown ; 
they only know how to translate their 
feelings into simple, tranquil phrases. 
Jeanne must have been deeply moved in 
writing this letter to Jean; but he also 
spoke that simple language, and under- 
stood all she wrote of her love and reso- 
lutions. His reply to her was full of ten- 
derness and gratitude. He also addressed 

17 


258 The Romance of a Spahi, 

a letter to his uncle Mery, a formal re- 
quest, accompanied with sincere pledges 
of prudence and good conduct, and then 
he awaited with much anxiety the return 
of the mail from France. 

M. Prosper Suirot was a young bailiff, 
stiff and pompous ; and a fierce free- 
thinker, having imbibed all of the atheistic 
nonsense of the age. He was very near- 
sighted, his small, red eyes peering through 
smoky spectacles, which would have ex- 
cited the contempt of Jean, who always 
felt an instinctive repulsion for persons 
badly formed and ugly. 

Influenced by the dowry and beautiful 
figure of Jeanne Mery, the little bailiff 
believed, in his puffed-up vanity, that he 
was greatly honoring the young peasant 
girl by offering her his ugly person and 
high social position. He intended after 
their marriage to place her high in society, 
and that Jeanne should become a fine lady. 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 259 


III. 

Several months passed, but the mail 
from France brought no letter for Jean. 

In the letters from his mother Jeanne 
had always sent some message of love and 
fidelity. His uncle Mery might remain 
inflexible, but so would Jeanne; so he was 
full of hope, not doubting but that all 
would be satisfactorily arranged on his 
return to the village. 

He indulged more than ever in delicious 
dreams. After nearly six years of exile, 
this return to his native village appeared 
to him in the most glowing colors, and all 
his dreams were radiant with rosy antici- 
pations. To arrive in the gay uniform of 
a spahi in the village diligence, to see the 
Cevennes reappearing with their familiar 
lights and shadows, the well-known paths, 


260 The Romance of a Spahi. 

the beloved steeple, the paternal roof by 
the wayside — and then to clasp in his 
arms in ecstasy his old parents ! 

They would go together to the Merys ; 
the young girls, all the good people of the 
village would run to the doors and win- 
dows to see them pass. He would appear 
very grand to them in his red clothes and 
his military air. His uncle Mery would 
see. the golden lace of a quarter-master 
(which he intended to win) shining on his 
sleeve, and the effect would be irresisti- 
ble. After all, his uncle Mery was a 
good man and had loved him, though he 
had grumbled about his conduct formerly. 

Far away in exile, one always sees those 
who remain at home in the most favorable 
light; they are always good and affection- 
ate ; only their defects are forgotten. 

Jean was confident his uncle would not 
remain obdurate when he saw his two 
children supplicating at his feet. He 


The Romance of a Spahi . 261 

would certainly relent ; he would place 
Jeanne’s hand in his own, and then what 
happiness, what a sweet and beautiful life, 
what a paradise on earth ! 

Jean never pictured himself dressed 
like the men of his village, wearing the 
modest hat of a mountaineer ; he never 
allowed his thoughts to dwell on this 
subject. In his red uniform, under the 
sun of Africa, he had really begun to 
live, and had grown to be a man. And 
he loved it all — his Arabian fez, his sabre, 
his horse, and that great, God-forsaken 
country — the desert. 

He knew not how often delusions van- 
ished and ideals were wrecked for poor 
sailors and soldiers when they return to 
the long-dreamed-of village which they 
had left in their youth, and which, when 
far away, they had only seen through the 
enchanted prisms of sweet memory. 

Alas ! what sadness, what weariness, 


262 The Romance of a Spahi. 

often follow these poor exiles to their 
own country ! 

Young men like Jean, acclimated, ener- 
vated in the land of Africa, have often 
wept for the desolate banks of the Sen- 
egal, the long rides on horseback, the free 
life, the burning sun, and the limitless 
horizon, for all of this is wanting else- 
where ; and when it no longer exists, in 
the tranquillity of home, they feel the 
need of the devouring sun, they sigh for 
the desert, and are homesick for the end- 
less sands. 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 263 


IV. 

In the meantime, Boubakar-Segou, a 
powerful black king, was playing his 
pranks in Diambour and the country of 
Djiagabar. 

An expedition of war was in the wind ; 
it was whispered in official circles at Saint 
Louis, and commented upon and discus- 
sed in a thousand ways by the spahis, 
marksmen, and the infantry troops of the 
marines. It was noised abroad, and each 
one expected to win his promotion — a 
medal or a grave. 

jean was about to finish his service, and 
he was anxious to regain all he had lost 
by his past misconduct. He had dreams 
of wearing in his button-hole, on the yel- 
low ribbon of the brave, the military 
medal. He wished, in bidding an eternal 


264 The Romance of a Spa hi. 

farewell to Africa, to do some act of valor 
that would make his name remembered 
at the barracks of the spahis in that cor- 
ner of the world where he had lived and 
suffered so long. 

Between the barracks, the officers of 
the marines, and the Government officials 
a rapid exchange of correspondence took 
place ; and there arrived at the quarters 
large sealed envelopes that greatly excited 
the curiosity of the spahis. 

A long, serious expedition was pre- 
dicted. 

The spahis sharpened and polished their 
great sabres, refilled their powder-flasks, 
and drank absinthe with gay words, bra- 
vados, and joyous anticipations. 

One day about the first of October, 
Jean was sent to the palace of the Gov- 
ernment to carry an important document. 

As he hastened along the long straight 
street, which was as empty and as dead as 


The Romance of a Spain. 265 

a street of 1 hebes or Memphis, he saw a 
spahi approaching him, bearing in his hand 
a letter. 

It was Sergeant Muller, who was dis- 
tributing among the spahis the mail from 
France, which had arrived but an hour 
ago with a caravan from Dakar. 

“ This is for you, Peyral,” he said, as 
he extended to him a letter bearing the 
postmark of his native village. 

The letter which Jean had been expect- 
ing for a month burned his hand, and he 
hesitated to open it, finally resolving to 
finish his mission before reading it. 

At last he arrived at the railings of the 
Government house ; the gate was open, 
and he entered. 

In the garden there was the same lack 
of animation he had observed in the 
street. A great tame lioness lay extended 
on the sands ; ostriches slept on the 
ground, under the stately blue aloes, in 


266 The Romance of a Spahi. 

the cool gray shadows. It was mid- 
day ; no one was in sight; silence reigned, 
the silence of a necropolis. The shadows 
of the yellow palm trees fell on the great 
white terraces and relieved the glare of the 
burning sun. 

Jean hastened in search of someone to 
whom he might deliver the document. 
He at last arrived at a bureau where he 
found the Governor surrounded by the 
different heads of the colonial service, 
deeply engaged in discussing weighty 
matters. 

In exchange for the document which 
Jean brought they gave him another, 
addressed to the commandant of the 
spahis. 

It was a definite order to march, and 
that afternoon it was communicated offi- 
cially to all the troops at Saint Louis. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 267 


V. 

When Jean found himself once more 
in the solitary street he opened the letter, 
trembling with a vague fear. 

He found only the handwriting of his 
old mother. The penmanship was more 
irregular than, ever, and it was stained 
with tears. 

He eagerly devoured the contents; it 
bewildered him, and he leaned against a 
wall for support. 

All was over ! They had taken away 
from him his betrothed, whom his old 
parents had chosen for him — the sweet- 
heart of his boyhood : 

The bans are published; the marriage will take 
place in a month. I do not doubt it now. 
Jeanne never comes to see us. I would not 
write it to you sooner, my dear son, so as not to 
trouble you when you could do nothing. We are 


268 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

in great despair. Yesterday, Peyral had a presenti- 
ment that terrified us. It was that you would 
never return from Africa. We are both old, my 
dear Jean, and I beg you on my knees not to allow 
this news to keep you from being prudent, and 
that you will come home as soon as you expected. 
If you disappoint us, I would rather die at once, 
and so would Peyral. 

H is brain was full of incoherent and 
tumultuous thoughts. He made a rapid 
calculation of dates — no, it was not over 
yet. He would telegraph ! But why did 
he dream of such a thing; there was no 
telegraphic connection between France 
and the land of the Senegal — and what 
more could he have told them than he 
had already written? 

O, that he might sail on some vessel 
at that moment, leaving all behind him ! 
That he might arrive in time to throw 
himself at their feet with tears and suppli- 
cations; he might be able to soften their 
hearts. 


The Romance of a Spahi . 269 

What impossibilities, what impotency ! 
All would be consummated ere he could 
reach them to utter one cry of grief. 

He felt that around his head there 
were bands of iron, and his whole body 
seemed to be undergoing some terrible 
pressure. 

He suddenly remembered that the doc- 
ument consigned to him by the Governor 
was an important one; so, piously kissing 
the name of old Francoise, he folded the 
letter and staggered along like a drunken 
man. 

Around him all was asleep in the great 
calm of mid-day. The ancient Moorish 
houses shone milk-white against the in- 
tense blue of the skies. Now and then 
there floated from behind the brick walls 
the plaintive song of a negress. Little 
negroes adorned with necklaces of coral 
slept on the door-steps, their faces up- 
turned to the blazing sun — dark spots in 
bold relief in that uniformity of light. 


2 jo The Romance of a Spahi \ 

Lizards glided across the smooth sands 
of the streets, tracing thereon zigzags as 
fantastic and complicated as Arabian 
characters ; and in the distance could be 
heard the noise of the pestle beating the 
Kouss-Koussy a sound so regular and mo- 
notonous that it made a kind of silence, 
dying away in the heavy strata of the 
noonday atmosphere. 

This tranquillity of overwhelmed na- 
ture seemed to exult over him, and had 
the effect of intensifying his grief. It 
depressed him as some physical suffering; 
it suffocated him as a winding-sheet of 
lead ; all at once the whole country im- 
pressed him as a vast tomb. 

He awoke from his deep sleep of five 
years, and there rose in his heart a great 
revolt against all things in the world. 

Why had they taken him from his vil- 
lage, from his mother, to bury him, at the 
most beautiful time of his life, in this 
country of death ! 


The Romance of a Spahi. 271 

What right had they to make him a 
spahi — half African — unhappy classifica- 
tion ! A vagabond of the sword, forgot- 
ten by all, and now, his crown of sorrows, 
renounced by his betrothed ! 

He was filled with a terrible rage ; he 
felt a desire to torture, to strangle, to 
crush someone in his powerful arms. 
He could not weep, though he felt that 
in that whole country he had not a friend, 
not a heart comrade to whom he might 
recount his sorrows. He was all alone, 
amid the heat, the sands, and the mighty 
silence. 


272 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 


VI. 

Jean ran on to the barracks, and threw 
to the first man he saw the papers that 
had been entrusted to him ; then he rushed 
into the open air and began to walk 
swiftly and aimlessly — his way of stifling 

grief- 

He crossed the bridge at Guet-n’dar 
and turned southward toward the point 
of Barbary ; as on that momentous night, 
four years before, when he had fled in 
anguish from the house of Cora. 

But this time he was suffering the pro- 
found and deep despair of a man whose 
life was ruined. 

For several hours he walked toward 
the south, losing sight of Saint Louis and 
the thatched roofs of the negro villages, 
and finally, heart-sick and foot-sore, he 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 273 

sank down at the foot of a sand-hill that 
commanded a view of the sea. 

He was confused and dazed by the 
burning heat of the sun, and as he gazed 
distractedly around him he discovered 
that he had never been on this spot be- 
fore. The hill was bristling with strange 
tombstones, bearing inscriptions in the 
language of Maghreb, and bones that long 
ago had been unearthed by the jackals 
lay bleaching in the sun. 

The absolute aridity of the surround- 
ing country was here and there relieved 
by a few signs of verdure. Fresh, green 
garlands of rope-weed crept in and out 
of decayed skulls and entwined around 
the crumbling bones of arms and legs, 
now and then blossoming into clusters of 
brilliant scarlet flowers. 

Near by, other funeral hills rose out of 
the smooth plains with lugubrious aspects, 

and on the sea-shore were great Hocks 
18 


274 The Romance of a Spahi. 

of pelicans of a pinkish-white color that 
assumed singular forms and uncouth di- 
mensions in the twilight mirage. 

The sun dipped into the ocean ; a fresh 
breeze rose; Jean commenced to read his 
mother’s letter once again : 

Yesterday, my dear son, Peyral bad a presenti- 
ment which greatly terrified us; it was that you 
would never return from Africa. We are both old, 
and your poor mother begs you on her knees not 
to allow this news to keep you from being pru- 
dent, and that you will come home as soon as 
you had expected. If you do not, I would rather 
die at once, and so would Peyral. 

Jean became convulsed with sobs; he 
felt that his heart was broken, and all his 
rebellious nature was spent in tears. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


275 


VII. 

Two days after this, all the marine 
boats that were needed for the expedition 
were grouped in the bend of the river 
near Pop-n’kior, north of Saint Louis. 

The embarkment of the troops took 
place in sight of a vast concourse of peo- 
ple. The wives and children of the sharp- 
shooters crowded on the beach, howling 
to the sun as if they had lost their senses. 
Moorish caravans, just arrived from the 
Soudan with their loads of incongruous 
baggage and their beautiful wives, formed 
a circle on the sands waiting to see 
them off. 

About four o’clock, the flotilla which 
was to ascend the river as far as Dialde, 
in Gallam, was loaded^with its cargo of 
human beings, and set out on its journey 
under the heat of a fiery sun. 


276 The Romance of a Spahi. 

Saint Louis soon disappeared in the 
distance, its regular outlines becoming 
dim and indistinct, and finally faded 
away in pale-blue streaks on the yellow 
sands. 

Wide and salubrious plains stretched 
out on each side of the river, and as far 
as the eye could see there were deserts, 
eternally warm, eternally gloomy. And 
this was but the entrance to that immense 
country forgotten of God— -the vestibule 
to the vast solitudes of Africa. 

Jean, with the other spahis, had em- 
barked upon the Faleme, which sailed 
rapidly ahead, and was soon two days in 
advance. 

Before his departure he had written a 
reply to the poor old Francoise. Upon 
reflection, he disdained to write to his 
betrothed ; but in the letter to his mother 
he poured out his whole soul, and said all 
he could to comfort her and give her 


The Romance of a Spahi. 277 

hope and peace of mind. “After all,” he 
wrote, “she was too rich for us, and we 
can easily find in France another young 
girl who will marry me, and we will so 
arrange it that we may all live together 
in the old house, so that we may not be 
separated from you. I have no other 
thought now than the joyful anticipation 
of seeing you, and in three months I will 
return. I swear to you that I will 7 iever , 
never leave you again.” 

This was really his intention, and every 
day he thought much of his old parents; 
but the idea of spending the rest of his 
days without Jeanne Mery threw a thick 
veil of mourning over the bright dreams 
of his return. He felt that he no longer 
had an object in life, and the future 
lay before him, shrouded in the deepest 
gloom. 

By his side, on the deck of the Faleme , 
was Nyaor-fall, the tall black spahi, and 


278 The Romance of a Spahi. 

to him he confided his troubles, as he was 
his most faithful friend. 

Nyaor scarcely understood these senti- 
ments, as he had never loved. He pos- 
sessed, it is true, under his thatched roof, 
three wives whom he had purchased, but 
he counted upon selling them as soon as 
they ceased to please him. 

Nevertheless, he comprehended that 
his friend Jean was unhappy; so he smiled 
at him pleasantly, and in order to distract 
his mind he related some very ludicrous 
anecdotes of a certain race of negroes 
who sleep standing. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


2 79 


VIII. 

The flotilla sailed up the river with all 
possible speed, anchoring each day at 
sunset, and resuming the route at day- 
break. 

At the first French post they took on 
more black men and women and other 
baggage. At Dagana they rested for two 
days, and the Faleme received orders to 
continue her route alone to Podor, the 
last post before they entered the land of 
Gallam, where there were already assem- 
bled several companies of sharp-shooters. 

The Faleme ascended the narrow yellow 
stream that separates the Moorish Sahara 
from that great mysterious continent in- 
habited by the blacks, and was soon lost 
in the interior. 

Jean contemplated with deep melan- 


280 The Romance of a Spahi . 

choly the solitudes through which they 
were passing, following with his eye the 
ever-receding horizon, and the Senegal, 
that trailed behind them in the infinite 
distance like a sinuous ribbon. 

To him there seemed to be a curse on 
all the land ; and as the great plains 
unrolled before him, he was impressed 
with an indefinable fear, as if the earth was 
closing behind him, shutting off forever 
his return. 

On the gloomy banks of the river bald- 
headed storks and large black vultures 
stalked gravely, casting shadows like 
those of human beings. Sometimes a 
curious monkey darted out of the man- 
drake thickets, startled at the sight of the 
vessel threading its way up the silent river; 
and now and then a fine white aigrette 
or a martin-fisher, with gorgeous plumage 
of blue and emerald, flew out of the reeds, 
awakening in its flight the lazy alliga- 


The Romance of a Spahi. 281 

tors sleeping in the mud on the banks of 
the river. On the southern bank, the 
side inhabited by the sons of Ham, nu- 
merous villages were scattered at intervals 
in the depths of the desert plains. 

As they neared these habitations of 
men they could see from afar groups of 
gigantic fan-shaped palms, a kind of fetich 
tree that protects the towns. In the midst 
of the vast naked plains these palms re- 
mind one of giants keeping guard in the 
desert. Their trunks are of a reddish 
color, and are as smooth and straight as 
Byzantine columns. On the top of each 
tree is a meagre tuft of foliage, pointed 
like the beams of a star. 

On approaching nearer such a group 
of palms, one never fails to discover a 
negro ant-hill — numbers of pointed gray 
huts massed together on the yellow 
sands. 

Sometimes these African towns are 


282 The Romance of a Spa hi. 

quite extensive. They are always sur- 
rounded by a tatas , a thick wall of mud 
and wood, which protects them from the 
invasion of their enemies, and from wild 
beasts. 

A white flag floating from a roof a 
little elevated above the others indicates 
the residence of the king. 

At the gates of these ramparts there 
appeared the sombre forms of old priests 
and chiefs, covered with amulets, their 
great black arms contrasting strangely 
with their long white robes. 

They gazed with awe at the Faleme 
as she glided up the river, her guns and 
battalions ready to fire at the least hostile 
movement. 

Why do these men dwell there in the 
depths of an arid, desolate country, spend- 
ing their whole lives with no knowledge 
of the outside world ? They know noth- 
ing of anything but the desert and the 
implacable sun. 


The Romance of a Spaki. 283 

On the Sahara side of the river there 
is the same look of desolation, the same 
dreary waste of sand. 

Sometimes they saw in the distance 
dense clouds of smoke rising upward 
from the fires of herbs lighted by the 
Moors. The chains of red hills on the 
horizon, seen through this smoke, had the 
appearance of innumerable furnaces whose 
flames seemed refit cted on the surface of 
great lakes, which, in this country of burn- 
ing droughts and parched sands, are per- 
petually pictured in the never-ceasing 
mirage. 

The landscape dappled and trembled 
in the intense heat. The scene changed 
as in a vision, and the eye grew weary in 
watching the panorama. 

Sometimes there appeared on the 
banks men of a pure white race. They 
were bronzed and savage, but their feat- 
ures were regular and handsome, and 


284 The Romance of a Spahi. 

their long flowing hair gave them the 
appearance of Biblical prophets as they 
stood there in the sun with uncovered 
heads, clothed in long, dark-blue robes. 

They were Moors of the tribe of Brak- 
nas and Trarzas — bandits, thieves, and 
robbers, the most worthless of all the 
African races. 


The Romance of a Spa/12. 285 


IX. 

The eastern breeze, like a powerful 
breath from the Sahara, rose by degrees, 
augmented in intensity in proportion to 
its distance from the sea. A dry wind, 
as hot as the air from a forge, blew from 
the desert, scattering over everything a 
fine powdered sand, and carrying along 
with it the burning drought of Beled-el- 
Ateuch. 

Water had to be thrown continually on 
the canvas that sheltered the spahis. 

As they approached Podor, the largest 
town on the river, the banks on the 
Sahara side became more animated. It 
was the entrance to the country of 
Douiach, which has become enriched by 
the cattle raids made by the Moors on 
the black country. These Moors swim 


286 


The Romance of a Spain. 

across the Senegal in long caravans, driv- 
ing before them in the water the stolen 
animals. 

Encampments began to appear on the 
plains ; tents made of camel’s hair were 
stretched upon wooden poles, resembling 
the great wings of bats spread out on the 
sands, black and grotesque, in the heart 
of that yellow country — always uniformly 
yellow. 

There were increased life and anima- 
tion everywhere, and crowds of people 
thronged the banks of the river to watch 
them pass. The copper-colored Moorish 
women, their heads adorned with chaplets 
of coral, jogged along oh little hump- 
backed cows, and capering behind them 
on the backs of restive calves were chil- 
dren, their heads covered with shaggy 
tufts of hair that resembled mane, and 
bodies as tawny and muscular as young 
satyrs. 


The Romance of a Spain . 287 


X. 

Podor is an important French post on 
the southern bank of the Senegal. There 
is a great, fortress there that is cracked 
and blistered by the sun, for it is the hot- 
test place on earth. 

A long, almost shady street runs along 
the river, built up of ancient sombre-look- 
ing houses. On this street may be seen 
French traders, jaundiced by the fever 
and the enervating climate; also black 
and Moorish merchants, who crouch there 
on the sands, offering for sale ostrich 
feathers, amulets, ivory, and gold-dust. 

Back of this European street lies the 
straw-thatched negro town, honey-combed 
with long narrow streets. It is sur- 
rounded by a thick wooden barricade, 
and is fortified like a citadel. 


288 The Romance of a Spahi. 

The evening after their arrival, Jean 
took a walk in company with his friend, 
Nyaor-fall. The sad songs and strange 
voices that floated from behind the walls, 
the unusual scenes, and the hot wind that 
burned in spite of night, filled the heart 
of Jean with a vague terror, and an inex- 
pressible anguish, produced by homesick- 
ness and solitude, weighed upon his 
spirits. He had never suffered so — not 
even at the distant post of Diakhalleme. 

Around Podor were fields of millet, 
brier-patches, stunted trees, and a few 
herbs. Across the river, on the Moorish 
side, lay the open desert. And there at 
the entrance of that painful route which 
loses itself in the sands as it trends north- 
ward, was a sign-post bearing the pro- 
phetic inscription, “ The way to Algeria ! ” 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 289 


XI. 

When Jean rejoined his companions on 
the Faleme , it was five o’clock in the 
morning, and a dull-red sun was rising 
over the country of Douiach. The 
Faleme was preparing to start. The 
negresses were already on deck, wrapped 
in their fantastic garments, and lying so 
close together that one could see nothing 
on the floor but a confused mass of stuff, 
above which were thrown many black 
arms encircled with bracelets. 

As Jean passed among them, he felt 
himself suddenly held back ; a pair of 
supple arms entwined themselves around 
him like serpents, and a woman clung to 
him, embracing him. 

“T’Jean! T’Jean!” said a queer little 
voice, which he at once recognized. 

19 


290 The Romance of a Spahi \ 

“T’Jean, I have followed you, fearing 
that you might gain Paradise in the war. 
T’Jean, will you not look at your little 
son?” And the two black arms lifted 
above her a little brown baby. 

“My son!” repeated Jean, with the 
brusqueness of a soldier, nevertheless 
with a tremor in his voice. “ My son ! 
What is it you are saying, Fatou-gaye?” 

“Alas, it is true!” continued he, in a 
voice full of emotion, lowering his head 
to regard the child. “ It is undoubtedly 
true, for the child is almost white ! ” 

The child was the image of Jean, hav- 
ing inherited his rich dark complexion 
and large solemn eyes. Holding out its 
little hands to Jean, it frowned with an 
expression already grave and questioning, 
as if seeking to comprehend how the 
blood of a mountaineer of the Cevennes 
had become mingled with the impure 
blood of a black race. 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 291 

Jean was overcome by some hidden 
mysterious power, and his heart was 
troubled. He stooped and embraced his 
little son with tenderness, and sentiments 
heretofore unknown penetrated the very 
depths of his soul. 

The voice of Fatou-gaye awakened in 
him a crowd of slumbering echoes. It 
seemed to him that now they were bound 
together by ties too powerful for even 
separation to weaken. 

And then, too, she had been faithful 
to him in her way; and now he felt so 
abandoned and forsaken by all. He per- 
mitted her to place around his neck an 
amulet, and he divided with her his 
rations for the day. 


292 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


XII. 

fhe vessel continued its course ; the 
river ran more southward, and the coun- 
try changed. 

Groves began to appear on the banks 
of the river, and here and there were 
mimosas, gum trees, tamarinds, with their 
airy, graceful foliage, and green herbs 
scattered over grassy meadows. 

It was no longer the flora of the tropics, 
but rather the delicate vegetation of a 
northern climate. Aside from the ex- 
cessive heat and monotonous silence, 
there was nothing to remind one of the 
heart of Africa. It was more like the 
banks of some peaceful ri-ver of Europe. 
In those groves a Watteau shepherdess 
would not have been out of place. 

Nevertheless, there were some negro 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 293 

pastoral scenes which arrested the eye ; 
some amorous African couples, bedecked 
with beads and trinkets, herding their 
lean oxen and goats, while near by were 
innumerable gray alligators, half plunged 
in the warm waters, asleep in the sun. 

Fatou-gaye was smiling, with a singular 
look of joy in her eyes, for she saw that 
she was approaching the land of Gallam, 
her own country. There was only one 
thing to mar her bliss ; that was, in pass- 
ing the grassy marshes and stagnant 
pools bordered with mandrakes, her soul 
was filled with inquietude for fear of 
seeing protruding above the water the 
snout of an hippopotamus, the sight of 
which would be to her a sign of death. 

What cunning, what perseverance, what 
insinuation she must have employed to 
obtain passage on the vessel upon which 
Jean had embarked ! 

Whence had she fled when she left the 


294 The Romance of a Spahi. 

house of Coura-n’diaye ? to what covert 
had she flown to conceal herself till the 
birth of the child of the spahi ? 

But now she was happy; she was return- 
ing to Gallam, and he was with her 
her dream was accomplished. 


The Romance of a Spa hi, 295 


XIII. 

Dialde is situated at the confluence of 
the Senegal and a nameless river that 
flows from the south. It is a negro set- 
tlement of little importance, defended by a 
small block-house of French construction, 
which resembles the detached forts of the 
interior of Algeria. 

It being the nearest point to the coun- 
try of Boubakar-Segou, the French troops 
were to encamp there and reunite with 
the allied armies of Bambarras, in the 
midst of friendly tribes. 

The flat country around the village 
had the same monotony and aridity that 
characterize the borders of the lower 
Senegal. 

Nevertheless, there was some verdure, 
some clumps of trees and small forests, 


296 The Romance of a Spahi . 

which reminded one that the country of 
Gallam had been entered — the wooded 
regions of the centre of Africa. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 297 


XIV. 

Some timid old women of the allied 
tribes brought information that they had 
seen upon the sands near Dialde fresh 
foot-prints of a numerous troop of infantry, 
which could be none other than the army 
of the great black king. 

For several hours the three spahis — 
Jean, Nyaor, and Sergeant Muller — had 
traversed the plains east of the encamp- 
ment without seeing a human foot-print, 
or any trace of the passage of an army. 

The sun revealed the foot-prints of every 
beast of Africa, from the big round hole 
scooped out by the heavy foot of the hip- 
popotamus to the small delicate triangle 
left by the hoof of the light gazelle as it 
takes its nimble course across the sands. 

The sands, indurated by the winter 


2gS The Romance of a Spahi. 

rains, preserve with perfect fidelity the 
marks left upon them by the inhabitants 
of the desert. One can see there the im- 
press of the paws of the monkey, the 
great swinging footsteps of the giraffe, 
the tracks of lizards, of serpents, of lions, 
of jackals, and the prodigious boundings 
of the hunted deer. 

What a terrible animation comes to 
these desert plains at night-fall! As long 
as the sun looks down upon them with its 
flaming eye, all is silent; but what imagi- 
nation can picture the fearful orgies of 
that savage life ! 

As the spahis rode along, the game 
concealed in the bushes took a startled 
flight, and flying about in the range of 
theirguns were red partridges, blue and red 
jackdaws, pheasants, gorgeous thrushes, 
and tremendous buzzards. But the spahis 
did not molest them, too engrossed in 
their search for the foot-prints of men. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 299 

Evening approached; dense vapors hung 
over the horizon ; the sun was dull and 
heavy, with that immobility of aspect 
which the imagination gives to the ante- 
diluvian sunsets at an epoch when the 
atmosphere, charged with vital substances, 
suspended over the primitive world the 
monstrous germs of mammoth and plesi- 
osaurus. At last, sinking behind myste- 
rious vapors, it became livid and rayless, 
appearing through the vapors enlarged 
and distorted, and then suddenly it was 
extinguished. 

Nyaor, who had been following Jean 
and Muller with his habitual indifference 
and silence, suddenly declared the recon- 
noissance was growing imprudent, and 
that his friends would be unnecessarily 
rash if they continued it. 

Almost any surprise or attack was to 
be apprehended; besides, there were every- 
where to be seen the fresh foot-prints of 


300 The Romance of a Spahi. 

lions. Their horses had already begun 
to smell the five claws so clearly defined 
on the sands, and trembled with fear. 

So they turned their bridles, and were 
soon flying like the wind in the direction 
of the block-house. In the distance they 
could hear the terrible and cavernous 
voice which the Moors compare to thunder 
— the voice of the lion in chase. They 
were brave men, but the sound of that 
voice gave them a kind of vertigo and 
made them redouble their speed. Their 
fear was contagious, and their steeds 
bounded forward through the reeds and 
bushes, which lashed their knees and im- 
peded their flight. 

But they soon perceived the river which 
separated them from the encampment 
and the inhabited world. The block- 
house at Dialde gleamed in the last red 
light of the sun as they swam the river 
and entered the camp. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 301 


XV. 

Although twilight was the most melan- 
choly hour of the day, it brought to this 
village an original and strange animation. 
There was a confused murmur of voices 
as the -shepherds Returned with their 
flocks; the warriors sharpened and bur- 
nished their prehistoric guns, and the 
women prepared the Kouss-Kouss for the 
army, all mingled with the bleating of 
goats and the plaintive howlings of the 
wolf-dogs. 

Fatou-gaye sat at the entrance of the 
block-house with her infant in her arms, 
wearing the humble and suppliant air she 
had assumed since her last meeting with 
Jean. 

And Jean, whose heart was sad and 
lonely, came and sat beside her, and took 


302 The Romance of a Spahi. 

his child upon his knee. Somehow he 
felt cheered and softened by the presence 
of his black family, and he was happy to 
find at Dialde someone who loved him. 

At a short distance from them the griots 
were chanting war-songs softly, in a sad 
falsetto, accompanied by their little guitars 
of two strings, which gave forth a sound 
like the shrill noise made by a grass- 
hopper. 

They chanted African airs that harmo- 
nized well with the desolation of the sur- 
rounding country, but which have a cer- 
tain charm — an indescribable, monotonous 
rhythm. 

Jean’s little son was a sweet babe, 
though its expression was serious, and it 
rarely ever smiled. Fatou-gaye had ar- 
rayed it in a blue frock, with a necklace 
of coral, like other Jaloff infants; but she 
had not shorn off the little curls, as was 
customary with the children of that 


The Romance of a Spahi. 303 

country, and they already lay upon his 
brow in soft ringlets, which heightened 
its resemblance to Jean. 

The spahi remained at the door of the 
block-house for a long time, playing with 
the little boy, and the dying light of day 
shone on this singular picture: Jean, in 
all his manly beauty and warlike bearing, 
holding in his arms the child with its tiny 
angelic form ; Fatou-gaye on the ground 
beside them, gazing at them with eyes full 
of love and adoration; and behind them, in 
the shadows, the sinister black musicians. 

Fatou-gaye was in ecstasy at being so 
near to Jean, and to know that she was 
forgiven ; and she sat on the ground be- 
fore him like a dog at the feet of its 
master. 

Poor Jean! he was still a boy, notwith- 
standing his precocious physical develop- 
ment, which had given him a mature and 
serious manner, and he danced the little 


304 The Romance of a Spahi. 

child upon his knee with all the awkward- 
ness of a soldier. There was a fresh 
young smile on his lips, but the child 
would not smile, though he put his little 
dimpled arms around the neck of his 
father; he laid his head upon his shoulder 
and regarded him with a look of deep 
gravity. 

At night-fall Jean installed Fatou-gaye 
comfortably within the block-house, then 
gave her all the money he had left, which 
amounted to fifteen francs. 

“ Take this,” he said, “and to-morrow 
morning buy Kouss-Kouss for yourself and 
fresh milk for the little one.” 


The Romance of a Spahi . 305 


XVI. 

He then took his way back to the en- 
campment to learn the news, and later on 
to sleep. 

In order to reach the tents of the 
spahis it was necessary for him to pass 
by the encampment of the allied tribes of 
Bambarras. 

The night was transparent and lumi- 
nous, and the buzzing of insects was almost 
deafening. In all the hollows of the sands 
and on every herb were thousands and 
thousands of crickets and grasshoppers, 
and it seemed as if the air was full of an 
infinite number of little bells and rattles, 
which at one moment swelled forth 
tumultuously, and after awhile would 
almost die away, as if the crickets had 

given the order to sing more softly. 

20 


306 The Romance of a Spahi. 

Jean walked along abstractedly, wholly 
absorbed in his thoughts. He did not 
look ahead of him, and all at once he 
found himself encircled by a ring of whirl- 
ing dancers, who sang softly and harmo- 
niously as they glided around in a circle, 
a favorite dance of Bambarras. 

The dancers were all tall men, clothed 
in long white robes, and on their heads 
were white turbans with black horns. 

They floated so softly and slowly around 
him that it seemed to Jean as if it were a 
dance of the fairies there in the starlight. 
The only perceptible sound was the rus- 
tling of their flowing draperies, whose 
thousands of folds were spread out like 
the wings of great white birds. They all 
assumed different attitudes simultane- 
ously, balancing themselves on the point 
of the toe, and swaying gently backward 
and forward. 

The noise of the tam-tam was faint 


The Romance of a Spahi. 307 

and muffled in the distance, and the sad 
notes of the flutes and ivory trumpets 
seemed veiled and far away. 

As they whirled around Jean they in- 
clined their heads in sign of recognition, 
and smilingly whispered: 

“T’Jean, TJean, enter the dance!” 

Jean recognized nearly all of them, 
even in that strange raiment. They were 
the black spahis and sharp-shooters, who 
had assumed the white robe and uncouth 
head-dress of the Temba-sembe of their 
festivals. 

They whirled around and around, keep- 
ing time to the weird, monotonous music, 
which seemed to thrill them as a magic 
incantation. 

As they passed him, Jean nodded his 
head and smilingly called their names. 

“ Good evening, Niodagal! Good even- 
ing, Imobe-Fafandon ! Good evening, 
Demba-Taco, and Samba-fall! Good 


308 The Romance of a Spahi. 

evening, tall Nyaor!” For Nyaor was 
there, the grandest of them all. 

He hastened onward, and endeavored 
to disentangle himself from the long chain 
of dancers that coiled and uncoiled itself 
about him. The night, the dancers, the 
low faint music impressed him strangely, 
as if they belonged to another world. 

But they repeated their invitation, 
“T’Jean, T’Jean, enter the dance!” float- 
ing around him like spirits, amusing them- 
selves by keeping him entangled in the 
mystic circle, which widened as he walked 
along. 


The Romance of a Spahi . 309 


XVII. 

As Jean lay under his tent that night, 
his brain was busy with plans for the 
future. 

He determined to return at once to 
see his old parents — he would allow noth- 
ing to defer his departure; but he would 
return to Africa to find his son, for he felt 
that he really loved him with his whole 
heart, and he would never abandon him. 

Near by, in the camps of the Bam- 
barras, he could hear the voices of the 
griots singing their plaintive, consecrated 
war-songs, soothing the first dreams of 
the black warriors. They entreated them 
to be brave, and to load their carbines 
heavily on the day of the fight, which was 
soon to dawn upon them, for Boubakar- 
Segou was not far away. 


310 The Romance of a Sfahi. 

What would he do at Saint Louis when 
he returned to find his little child? 

Would he reenlist, or would he try his 
fortune in some other venturesome pro- 
ceeding ? 

He might become a trader on the 
river. But no ; he felt an invincible aver- 
sion for any occupation but that of the 
field and of arms. 

At last the noises of life in the village 
of Dialde had ceased, and the encamp- 
ment was silent. Far away in the dis- 
tance could be heard the roar of the lion, 
and that most lugubrious sound on earth 
— the yelping of the jackals. It was a 
funereal accompaniment to the dreams of 
the poor spahi. 

Overcome with the fatigues and advent- 
ures of the day, Jean soon fell asleep, 
still dreaming of the future. 

But in his dreams he could see the 
dancers whirling slowly around him, pass- 


The Romance of a Spahi. 31 1 

in g and repassing him with mute gest- 
ures and languishing attitudes, keeping 
time to that sweet, unearthly music. 

“T’Jean, T’Jean, enter the dance!” 

Their heads, which were inclined to 
salute him, seemed to bend beneath their 
heavy head-dress. They made horrible 
grimaces and assumed ghostly forms, and 
bending over him with a knowing air, 
upon their lips the smile of phantoms, 
they whispered softly: 

“T’Jean, T’Jean, enter the dance!” 

And just as he seemed about to yield 
to this weird invitation, he fell into a 
deep and dreamless sleep. 


312 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


XVIII. 

At three o’clock the morning of the 
great day, the day of the combat, all was 
in a state of agitation and excitement at 
the encampment at Dialde. The spahis, 
sharp-shooters, and allied troops were all 
preparing to march with their arms and 
munitions of war. 

The Mahometan priests were repeat- 
ing their long prayers and distributing 
talismans. 

By order of the chiefs, the black war- 
riors had loaded their carbines with 
lead almost to the muzzles, as they did 
on the days of all great battles ; and it 
often happens, in the wars in black coun- 
tries, the whole load is scattered at the 
first discharge. 

They were to march in the direction of 


The Romance of a Sfiahz. 313 

the village of Djidiam, where, on the in- 
formation of native spies, Boubakar- 
Segou was entrenched with his army 
behind the thick walls of mud and wood. 

Djidiam was the strongest fortress of 
this almost legendary king, who was the 
terror of the surrounding country; a sort 
of myth, whose strength lay in his flight 
and concealment in the impenetrable re- 
cesses of that murderous country where 
he dwelt undiscovered. 

That afternoon they proposed to camp 
under the great trees, not far from the 
enemy’s quarters, in order to fall upon 
Djidiam at night, and set fire to the vil- 
lage, which would burn under the clear 
heavens like an auto-da-fe of straw. Then 
they would return, victorious, to Saint 
Louis before the fatal fever had decimated 
their ranks. 

During the night, Jean wrote a tender 
letter to his old parents, and sent it with 


3 H The Romance of a Spahi. 

the other mail on the Faleme , which that 
evening would descend the river. 

A little before sunrise, he embraced 
his infant, asleep on the arm of Fatou- 
gaye, then mounted his horse. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


315 


XIX. 

Early in the morning, Fatou-gaye also 
started out, with her infant on her back. 

She went in the direction of Nialoum- 
bae, a village of an allied tribe, where 
dwelt an old Mahometan priest who was 
famous in all the country around for fort- 
une-telling and soothsaying. 

She was conducted to the hut of the 
centenarian, whom she found reclining on 
a mat, as if dying, muttering prayers. 

They had a long interview, and the 
priest gave her a small leather bag, which 
evidently contained something precious, 
for she concealed it carefully in her 
bosom. 

He then gave the infant a beverage 
which put him into a deep sleep. 

In payment, Fatou-gaye gave him three 


3 1 6 The Romance of a Spa hi . 

large pieces of silver, the last franc of 
poor Jean. She then enveloped her little 
son, who seemed to sleep a magical sleep, 
in a blue embroidered cloth, and bearing 
him upon her back, she walked in the 
direction of the woods where the troops 
would encamp in the evening. 


The Romance of a Spain. 


3i7 


XX. 

Seven o’clock in the morning - . An 
obscure spot in the country of Diambour. 
On one side are grassy marshes filled 
with herbs and stagnant water, and low 
hills bound the horizon ; on the opposite 
side, as far as the eye can see, are the 
great plains of Dialakar. 

All is silent and desolate. 

Jean, with ten or twelve other spahis 
in charge of an adjutant, have been sent 
out to reconnoitre. 

In the air there was no presage of death, 
nothing funereal. The sun mounted 
tranquilly in the heavens. The herbs 
and bushes in the marshes still glittered 
with the dew of night, and butterflies 
with gorgeous wings flitted above the 
water-lilies that unfolded their snow-white 
blossoms on the pools of water. 


3 1 B The Romance of a Spahi ‘ 

The heat soon became oppressive, and 
the horses stretched out their necks to 
drink, sniffing the stagnant waters with 
dilated nostrils. 

The spahis paused for a moment to 
hold council, and dismounted to moisten 
their hats and bathe their heated brows. 
Suddenly, in the distance they heard a 
sound like the noise of many drums 
beating simultaneously. 

“The great tam-tams!” said Sergeant 
Muller, who had often seen war in the 
black country. 

And instinctively those* who had dis- 
mounted ran to their horses. 

But a black head rose near them from 
the bushes ; it was an old priest, who 
made a strange sign with his lean arm, 
as if a magic order addressed to the reeds 
of the marshes, and a shower of lead fell 
upon the spahis. 

The weapons aimed deliberately from 


3 T 9 


The Romance of a Spahi . 

the security of this ambuscade took 
deadly effect. Five or six horses fell, 
mortally* wounded, and others, surprised 
and affrighted, reared and plunged, tram- 
pling under foot their bleeding riders. 

Jean was unhorsed, and fell to the 
ground with a ball in his breast. 

At the same time, forty hostile heads 
emerged from the high bushes, and forty 
black demons reeking with mud arose, 
grinding their white teeth like enraged 
monkeys. 

O, heroic combat, that a Homer might 
have sung, but which remains obscure 
forever, forgotten, like many another 
struggle in the far-distant Africa ! 

They performed prodigies of strength 
and valor, the poor spahis, in their last 
defense. The struggle inflamed them, as 
it ever does when men are courageous by 
nature and born brave. They sold their 
lives dearly; but a few years only will 


320 The Romance of a Spahi. 

elapse at Saint Louis ere they are for- 
gotten. Who will perpetuate their names, 
the names of those who fell that day in 
the far-off country of Diambour, on the 
plains of Dialakar ? 

In the meantime, the noise of the tam- 
tam drew nearer and nearer, and sud- 
denly the spahis, as if in a dream, saw 
passing over the hill a great black army 
of half-naked warriors, glittering with 
beads and trinkets, running in the di- 
rection of Dialde in detached crowds. 
Enormous tam-tams, gongs of war, which 
four men could hardly drag along ; lean 
horses of the desert, full of fire and fury, 
their harness plated with copper which 
gleamed in the blazing sun, their manes 
and tails as red as blood — all made the 
scene fantastic and demoniacal ; an 
African nightmare, as fleeting as the 
wind ! 

Boubakar-Segou was passing by! 


The Romance of a Spahi. 321 

He was going to subdue the French 
columns. 

They passed along without noticing 
the spahis, leaving them to the ambushed 
troops who had already overwhelmed - 
them. 

Some of the spahis pushed forward 
from the bushes on the edge of the water, 
and fled onward over the burning sands, 
but they were soon exhausted by the ter- 
rible heat. Not being able to reload 
their guns, they fought with their knives, 
kicked and upset their opponents with 
their feet, and scratched and bit them. 

Jean was attacked by two black fiends, 
who seemed to be incensed and enraged 
at his superior strength. He threw them 
to the ground repeatedly in his fury, but 
they arose each time and confronted him 
with increased rage. 

As he lay there, dazed and confused, 

grasping their oily black limbs with bleed- 
21 


322 The Romance of a Spahi. 

in g hands, he witnessed the last terrible 
scenes: His dying comrades fallen around 
him; the great army of the black king in 
the distance, flying over the burning sands ; 
at his side the handsome Muller, vomit- 
ing blood, the death-rattle already in his 
throat ; and a little further on, the tall 
black form of Nyaor, who was endeavor- 
ing to open a way in the direction of 
Salde, mowing through the crowd of 
black demons with terrific blows of his 
sabre. 

Finally, Jean grew weaker, and suc- 
cumbed to his opponents. They threw 
him on his back, holding him by his arms, 
and one of them pressed against his 
breast a great iron knife. 

It was a moment of terrible anguish 
for Jean. There was no human succor 
near; his comrades had all fallen; he was 
alone and forsaken. The thick cloth of 
his red coat and the coarse linen of his 


The Romance of a Spahi. 323 

soldier’s shirt resisted the entrance of the 
knife ; but the black men pressed it very 
hard, and Jean uttered a loud, hoarse cry 
as the blade, with a horrible grinding noise, 
plunged into his chest. Then they drew 
it out with both hands, and kicked his 
body from them ; and raising a shout 
of victory, they turned in the direction of 
the army, and in a moment had gone like 
the wind. 


324 The Romance of a Spahi. 


XX I. 

The two armies met; it was a bloody 
battle, but it made little noise in France. 
Such combats, occurring in far-distant 
countries, pass unnoticed by the crowd, 
and only those who mourn the loss of a 
brother, son, or lover remember them. 

The French troops were weakening, 
when, almost at the end of the action, 
Boubakar-Segou received a load of buck- 
shot in his right temple. The brains of 
the black king oozed out as white as 
milk, and he fell, surrounded by his 
priests, entangled in his long chaplet of 
amulets, the iron cymbals of war clashing 
furiously in his dying ears. His death 
was the signal for retreat to his followers, 
and they fled precipitately into the impen- 
etrable country of the interior. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 325 

When the French troops returned to 
Saint Louis they carried with them the 
bloody head-band of the rebel chief. It 
was burned and riddled by bullets, and 
attached to it was a long string of talis- 
mans and embroidered bags containing 
mysterious powders, cabalistic figures, and 
prayers in the language of Maghreb. 

The death of Boubakar-Segou had a 
considerable moral effect on the natives, 
and this combat was followed by the sub- 
mission of most of the insurgent chiefs. 

It was a victory, and on their return to 
Saint Louis there were several promotions 
and decorations; but the ranks of the poor 
spahis were sadly reduced. 


26 The Romance of a Spahi. 


XXII. 

Left alone on the sands, with the dew 
of death gathering on his brow, poor 
Jean crawled painfully along till he 
reached a tamarind tree, and lying down 
in the shade of its foliage, waited to die. 

His throat was agitated with convulsive 
movements, and he knew that his end was 
approaching. He suffered terribly from 
thirst, and the arid sands drank up the 
blood that flowed from his wounds. 

He had strange visions. He saw famil- 
iar faces ; the chain of the Cevennes, 
his beloved home in the purple shadows 
of the mountains. Once more he walked 
with his dear old mother, holding her 
hand, through the mossy paths, as in his 
childhood. O, for one caress from his 
mother ! for the touch of her hand on his 


327 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 

brow ! O, for one draught of water from 
the limpid stream that ran through the 
forest, to cool his parched throat and 
burning brain ! 

Was this the end of all things? Was 
he to die here, all alone, under the blazing 
sun on the desert sands? Was he never 
to hear his mother’s voice again — never to 
see her face? He raised himself up, for 
he did not wish to die. 

“ T’Jean, T’Jean, enter the dance ! ” 

There seemed to float before his eyes, 
as if in a terrible whirlwind, the phantom 
dancers, mounting in rapid circles and 
quickly vanishing in the embrace of the 
blue ether. 

Jean longed to follow them, but they 
floated away swiftly, like smoke before 
the wind. 

Suddenly he felt that he was being 
lifted up as if on wings, and he thought 
it was the supreme moment of death. It 


328 The Romance of a Spahi. 

was only a contraction of the muscles, a 
horrible spasm of grief. 

A jet of blood flowed from his mouth, 
and hissing against his temple he seemed 
to hear a voice : 

“ T’Jean, T’Jean, enter the dance !” 

At last he grew calmer, and sank down 
exhausted upon his bed of sand. 

Memories of his childhood crowded 
through his brain, strangely vivid and 
clear. He heard the old songs with 
which his mother had lulled him to sleep 
in his little cradle ; suddenly the village 
clock sounded noisily in his ears, and 
then in the midst of the gloomy desert 
he seemed to hear the Angelus ! 

Tears rolled down his bronzed cheeks; 
the prayers of his youth revisited his 
memory, and he prayed once more with 
the fervor of a little child. In his hands 
he held the image of the Virgin which 
his mother had placed around his neck! 


The Romance of a Spahi ’ 329 

He had the strength to carry it to his lips. 
He kissed it passionately, and with his 
whole soul he prayed to that mother of 
griefs to whom his mother knelt each 
evening. 

Radiant dreams, illusions, and the 
forms of those who had long been dead, 
appeared to him; and then in the crush- 
ing silence of that mighty solitude, he 
murmured faintly, again and again, “ Meet 
me in heaven! meet me in heaven!” 

It was now past mid-day; Jean was 
suffering less. 

The desert, under the intense heat of 
the tropical luminary, appeared to him as 
a great white furnace whose heat no 
longer burned him. His chest dilated as 
if to inhale more air, his mouth opened 
for the last time, and there, under the 
fierce, blazing light of the glowing sun, 
he passed away, gently, peacefully. 


330 


The Romance of a Spahi . 


XXIII. 

On Fatou-gaye’s return from the vil- 
lage of the old priest, the women of the 
allied tribes told her that the combat was 
over. She hastened to the encampment, 
panting and exhausted, dragging her 
weary footsteps painfully over the burn- 
ing sands. 

On her back she bore her sleeping in- 
fant, still enveloped in the piece of blue 
cloth. She had carefully concealed in her 
bosom the mysterious leather bag given 
to her by the old priest. As she neared 
the encampment she saw the Mussulman 
Nyaor-fall, who regarded her gravely as 
she approached him. 

In the language of his country she 
spoke to him three words: 

“ Where is he ?” 


The Romance of a Spahi. 331 

And Nyaor with a mournful gesture 
extended his arm in the direction of the 
lonely plains of Dialakar. 

“Yonder,” he said; “he has gained 
Paradise 


332 


The Romance of a Spaht, 


XXIV. 

All day long Fatou-gaye wandered 
about feverishly in the thickets on the 
sand, still carrying on her back her sleep- 
ing child. She advanced, returned, and 
sometimes ran about with the excited 
movement of a panther which has lost its 
young. She sounded the bushes, pushed 
aside the thorny briers, searching every- 
where under the scorching sun. 

At three o’clock, far away on the arid 
plains she perceived the dead body of a 
horse ; then a red coat — then two — then 
three. It was the scene of the attack. 

Here and there the light shadows of 
the tamarind and mimosa rested on the 
dry, parched earth, and afar off, across 
the barren, limitless waste, could be seen 
the silhouette of a village, its pointed roofs 


The Romance of a Spahi. 333 

clearly defined against the deep-blue of 
the horizon. 

Fatou-gaye paused, trembling, terrified. 
She saw him lying there with outstretch- 
ed arms, his mouth open, his face up- 
turned to the burning sun. She repeated 
a kind of invocation, a pagan rite, touch- 
ing the amulets suspended from her neck, 
speaking in a whisper ; her eyes were 
haggard and bloodshot. 

After awhile she saw coming toward 
her from the distant village a number of 
old women of the hostile tribes. These 
old negresses were hideously ugly, and as 
they approached the bodies of the spahis 
the trinkets and glass beads with which 
they were profusely adorned jingled 
noisily. They moved the bodies about 
with their feet, and grinning and chatter- 
ing like monkeys, they violated the dead 
with insulting buffoonery. 

They tore the gilt buttons from the gay 


334 Th e Romance of a Spa hi. 

uniforms, decorating their woolly heads 
with them, and gathered up the steel spurs, 
caps, and belts. 

Fatou-gaye, crouching like a cat ready 
to spring, was concealed among the 
bushes. When she saw them turn toward 
the body of Jean she bounded forward, 
uttering a cry like a wild animal, and 
cursed the women in an unknown tongue. 
Her child, awakening, clung terrified to the 
back of the enraged mother. 

The old women were so frightened at 
the sight of her that they fled. They 
were already laden with spoils, so they 
moved off, thinking to return on the mor- 
row. 

Speaking words that Fatou-gaye could 
not comprehend, they would go a short 
distance and then return to taunt her, 
laughing ferociously and gesticulating 
like chimpanzees. 

When Fatou-gaye was once more alone 


The Romance of a Spa hi. 335 

she knelt by the side of Jean and called 
him by his name repeatedly, “T’Jean! 
T’Jean !” in a shrill voice that sounded in 
the solitude like the voice of an ancient 
priestess calling the dead. She crouched 
there under the implacable sun of Africa, 
her eyes fixed on the great sombre hori- 
zon, for she was afraid to look at the 
body of Jean. 

Above her the vultures were flying 
boldly, beating the heavy air with their 
large black wings. They hovered over 
the dead bodies, but dared not touch them; 
they were too fresh. 

Fatou-gaye saw the image of the Vir- 
gin in the hand of Jean, and she under- 
stood that he had died praying. She 
also had an image of the Virgin, and a 
scapulary, among the charms around her 
neck. At Saint Louis a Catholic priest 
had baptized her, but she had no faith in 
them. 


336 The Romance of a Spa hi. 

So she took an amulet of leather, the 
one given to her long ago by her mother 
in the land of Gallam, and kissing it ten- 
derly, for it was her favorite charm, she 
placed it around the neck of Jean. 

"^Then she took her little child to stran- 
gle it; but not wishing to hear its cries, 
she filled its mouth with sand, and in a 
rage of grief and despair she dug a hole 
in the sand and buried it there, pressing 
it very hard until the vigorous little limbs 
stiffened and fell still and helpless. Then 
she threw herself upon the body of 
Jean. 

Thus died the child of Jean Peyral. 
Mysterious Providence ! Why was life 
given it? What did it come to find upon 
this earth, and whence did it return ? 

Fatou-gaye wept tears of blood, and 
her heart-rending groans resounded over 
the plains of Dialakar. At last she took 
from the leather bag she had obtained 


4 


The Romance of a Spa hi, 337 

from the old priest a bitter powder. She 
swallowed it, and her agony began. 

For a long time she lay there' strug- 
gling under the blazing sun, in horrible 
convulsions, clutching her throat with her 
fingers, and tearing her hair so gaily 
adorned with amber and coral. 

And the vultures hovered above her, 
waiting to see her die. 


22 


338 The Romance of a Spahi. 


XXV. 

At sunset on the plains of Dialakar she 
lay extended on the body of Jean, clasp- 
ing in her stiffened arms the body of her 
little child. 

And the night descended warm and 
starry on those forms resting so peace- 
fully there after their savage life — de- 
scended silently, mysteriously over all the 
gloomy land of Africa ! 

That same evening the nuptial cortege 
of Jeanne Mery passed before the house 
of the old Peyrals at the foot of the 
Cevennes. 


The Romance of a Spahi. 


339 


XXVI. 

APOTHEOSIS. 

At first it was but a groan in the dis- 
tance, at the extreme end of the horizon 
of the desert, then the lugubrious concert 
sounded nearer and nearer — the weird 
yelpings of the jackal, the sharp, fierce 
cries of the hyena. 

Poor old mother! That human form 
vaguely defined in the dim starlight, 
lying there in the depths of that fearful 
solitude, mouth gaping, arms extended 
under the blue heavens, who is asleep 
there at the hour when all the savage 
beasts are awake and roaming, who will 
never rise again — poor old mother, poor 
old woman, it is your son! 

By the light of the stars the famished 
band, grazing the thickets and jumping 


340 The Romance of a Spahi . 

over the high bushes, rush upon the 
bodies of the spahis, and begin the repast 
desired by blind nature — the living in one 
form or another feeding upon the dead. 

In his hand the man still held the 
image, the woman her charms of leather. 
Guard them well, O precious amulets ! 

To-morrow the vultures will continue 
the work of destruction ; then their bones 
will be dragged over the sands by all the 
beasts of the desert, at the mercy of the 
winds and grasshoppers. 

Old parents seated by your fireside in 
your humble cottage far away — old father 
bent with age, dreaming of your son, the 
handsome youth in the gay uniform — old 
mother who prays each evening for the 
absent one — wait for your son — await 
forever the coming of the spahi ! 






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Beautiful Typogravure illustrations, from etchings by Paul Avrill. 
In paper cover, 50 cents. Cloth, $1.00. 


FOR SALE at all BOOKSELLERS and NEWS STANDS. 


PRESS NOTICES. 

“An astounding book that will probably meet with a 
ready sale.” — St. Louis Republic. 

“My Uncle Barbassou” is one of the most realistic of 
these stories which have been translated of late. It is excit- 
ing, picturesque, and as unique as one may find in six months 
of reading. The fabric of the story hangs upon the inherit- 
ance, by a young man in Paris, of enormous wealth, 
estates, and other possessions, including a Turkish harem, 
from his Uncle Barbassou, who is a Mahommedan. For a 
Christian to be thus enriched is very peculiar, even for a 
story. However, the nephew being given to psychological 
investigations, sets about civilizing one of the four daugh- 
ters of the East, imbued with Mahomet’s religion, and the 
resulting complications border on the startling. One gets 
quite an insight in this process into the religious beliefs and 
customs of the East, and here and there they contrast very 
favorably with some of the customs of more civilized nations. 
This tale is told in a manner above reproach.”— Boston Times. 

“* * * rpjjg above quoted hints at a “loud” 

story, but the book is not shocking, nor even bad. * * * ” 

— New York Herald. 

“It is very interesting and graphic in description. * * 

* * The plot is well laid; it is equally as well told.”— 

New Orleans Picayune. 

“It is an amusing story.” — New York Tribune. 

“ Is not nearly so bad a book as a hasty glance at its first 
few pages might lead the rash reader to infer. * * * 

We have read novels, backed with moral motives, that 
contained matter which, taken in a wrong sense, or presented 
to the morbid, the prurient, or the immature, would be more 
likely to have a bad effect than anything we have encount- 
ered in this tale.” — New York Morning Journal. 

“The humor ot the situation is almost clever enough for 
About, and the under plot, in which Barbassou is the chief 
actor, is exquisitely funny.”— Boston Herala. 

Send for complete catalogue. 

RAND, McNALLY & CO. f Publishers, 

Chicago and New York. 


V 


L C Mir 31 



THE TAL E OF A C ENTURY. 

O VER a hundred years ago Pears’ Soap began in London 
its mission of cleanliness. To-day its use is universal, 
^ and more people than ever before acknowledge its 
superiority— a sure evidence that its mission has been suc- 
cessful. For one hundred years it has maintained its 
supremacy in the face of the whole world’s competition. 
Such a record could not be achieved without cause. 
Temporary successes are comparatively easy, but for an 
article to go on maintaining its popularity through genera- 
tion after generation, it must appeal to something more than 
passing fancy. This is the case with Pears’ Soap. It is, and 
always has been, an honest product. In the United States 
it has found a place in public favor equal to that so long 
held in England. Men and women alike find it good and 
reliable. The man who has once tried Pears’ Soap in the 
form of a shaving stick wants no other; he takes it with him 
on all his journeys. That woman who travels and fails to 
take, as she would her tooth-brush or hair-brush, a supply 
of Pears’ Soap, must put up with cheap substitutes until her 
burning, smarting skin demands the “matchless for the 
complexion.” Even children know the difference. So long 
as fair, white hards, a bright, clear complexion, and a soft, 
healthful skin continue to add to beauty and attractiveness, 
so long will Pears’ Soap continue to hold its place in the 
good opinion of women who want to be beautiful and at- 
tractive. Be sure to 
get the genuine 
BEARS 9 SOAR, as 
there are vile imi- 
tations. 



PEARS’ SOAP 
Fob 

Fair White Hands, 
Bright Clear 

Complexion, 
Soft Healthful Skin. 

“Matchless for the 
Complexion.’ ’ 

Adelina Patti. 


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